Andrew Orr
In a confusing move, Warner Bros. Discover may be planning to keep Discovery+ as a standalone service while still launching a new combined Discovery+ and HBO Max streaming platform.
WarnerMedia, a division of AT&T, combined with Discovery in a $43 billion merger in May 2021 to launch a unified streaming service. Discovery CEO David Zaslav had said in 2022 that the new service would combine HBO Max and Discovery+ to compete with the likes of Apple TV+ and others.
According to a report on Wednesday from Variety, Discovery+ will stick around as a standalone service. But, the new unified service will still combine HBO Max content and most Discovery+ content.
"Instead of combining HBO Max and Discovery+ in their entirety, the new platform will feature HBO Max content and most Discovery+ content, with Discovery+ remaining available as a standalone option," sources said.
The goal is to avoid losing a "significant chunk" of the 20 million subscribers on Discovery+ who might not want to pay a higher price to access the content. Discovery+ is priced at $6.99 without advertisements and $4.99 with ads.
Meanwhile, ad-free HBO Max costs $15.99 per month or $9.99 per month with advertising. According to Warner Bros. Discovery, the new unified service would cost more than the current price of HBO Max.
The combined HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming service has yet to launch formally. Warner Bros. Discovery has moved up the launch date from the summer to the spring while still keeping the name of the service a secret.
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Amber Neely
7 Comments
This may have been covered elsewhere, but does anyone know if HBO will also be available as a standalone option? Because like the others, I have no interest in this combined service.
Warner Bros. Discovery is all over the place at the moment. Their big DCU shake-up by James Gunn has had the most underwhelming announcement as the first
phasechapter. It looks like it will just fizzle out again.The Honest Trailers for Black Adam put it aptly - the reason why the faces of all the DC superheroes are hidden in the opening DC movies montage is because no one is sure who will play them in the next movie.
Looks like no one is sure what to do with their streaming service(s) either.
Video and audio streaming are like motion picture studios and TV stations, the streaming services will keep combining/coalescing, breaking apart, combining all in an effort to make more money for the principle managers/owners of the company, unstable, low margin, companies in TV and movies do that over and over again, particularly when new suckers can be brought in to pay the bill.
Which is why Apple, starting a streaming TV movie service from ground zero was probably the best way to go. If you want to get into this low margin, merry go round, Apple under a new CEO hopefully may decide to one day walk away from this low margin high churn business.
Note, it is still cheaper to buy a DVD or Blu-ray discs in light of the fact that very few good programs get made every year, of course, that depends on how much TV and movies you watch per year.