Just days after crowning HBO Max TV Streamer of the Year at the TechRadar Choice Awards 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has some bad news for new and existing HBO Max subscribers.
Following the platform's merger with Discovery Plus in 2023, HBO Max subscription prices will almost certainly head "north," WBD CEO JB Perrette confirmed. Also, the ad load on your cheapest, ad-supported subscription tier could be doubled.
The disclosures were made during WBD's (opens in a new tab) recent third-quarter earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts, and came after the company reported lower-than-expected results. Between July and September of this year, WBD's direct-to-consumer portfolio, which includes HBO, HBO Max and Discovery Plus, added just 2,8 million new subscribers. The company's total global subscriber count is now just under 95 million, some 57 million behind Disney Plus (152 million) and a whopping 128 million behind Netflix (223 million).
Clearly, WBD executives plan to react to the downturn by putting a high price tag on the company's as-yet-unnamed super streamer, which is expected to launch between March and June of next year.
More content, higher price
The standard tier of HBO Max currently costs €15 per month, a price that has remained static since the platform launched in May 2020. The ad-supported tier of HBO Max, which debuted in June 2021, costs €9 0,99 per month.
It's unclear if Perrette's allusion to prices heading "north" is referring to the standard and ad-supported tiers of HBO Max. However, since the amount of content offered by both versions of the streamer is likely to increase following the creation of WBD's super streamer, prices will almost certainly rise across the board.
That's Perrette's justification for the impending raises, anyway. Speaking to Wall Street analysts, the WBD CEO noted that mixing HBO Max with Discovery Plus will create a streaming product suitable for entire households, rather than individual users.
This sentiment matches what we've heard Perrette say before about WBD's new transmitter in development. Speaking in August 2022, the CEO confirmed that the service in question will bring together the broad portfolios of WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. under one streaming roof to provide "something for everyone." Currently, WBD's network offering includes HBO, CNN, DC Comics, Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Magnolia Network, OWN, TBS and TNT.
Explaining how the new streamer will prove to be greater than the sum of its parts, Perrette also said: “HBO Max has a competitive feature set, but has had performance and customer issues. Discovery Plus has the best performance and consumer ratings, but more limited features. Our combined service will focus on providing the best of both.
Clearly, then, WBD sees its new streamer as a more valuable offering than HBO Max and Discovery Plus as standalone products, and subscribers will have to pay for that higher value.
Touching on the topic of ads, Perrette also noted, in the company's recent earnings call, "Today we have two to three minutes of ads on HBO Max 'ad-light,' about half of what we have on Discovery Plus, So while launching the new combined products, we have nearly 100% growth of new available inventory as we look to combine announcements for these two products."
In other words, the ad-supported tier of HBO Max, in whatever form it appears after the merger with Discovery Plus, gets more ads. Of course, this tier will likely still be significantly cheaper than the ad-free version of the new streamer, but that won't be much of a relief for the millions of subscribers who already signed up for HBO Max's cheapest tier.
For more content based on HBO Max, check out our best HBO Max shows, best HBO Max documentaries, and best HBO Max movie articles.
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