HBO Max, Paramount+ streaming services will merge after WBD deal
Paramount+ and HBO Max signs.
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Paramount+ and HBO Max will be combined into a single streaming service if regulators approve Paramount Skydance purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount CEO David Ellison said in a conference call Monday.
A combined service would have about 200 million subscribers given current totals, Ellison said during his company’s investor call about the WBD transaction. Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery said last week that it had reached an agreement to sell WBD for $31 per share after Netflix pulled out of a protracted bidding war.
Paramount executives did not offer any details Monday about how the company would price the combined service or what it would be called. Still, Ellison said he wouldn’t disrupt the HBO brand.
“HBO should stay HBO,” he said, citing its long history of quality programming.
HBO is likely to be a sub-brand within the larger service, according to a person familiar with Paramount’s plans. HBO is currently run by Casey Bloys, whose contract expires in 2027, another person said. Bloys declined to comment.
Paramount also touted the power of combined sports services by bringing together TNT Sports and CBS Sports.
Paramount executives said they had heard nothing from regulators signaling that the breadth of its sports offerings, which include March Madness, NFL, MLB, NHL, Nascar, French Open, The Masters, college football and more, would trigger any antitrust concerns.
HBO’s broadcast journey
HBO has been present on various streaming services under different names in recent years.
Time Warner first launched HBO as a streaming option in 2010 as HBO Go. Four years later, HBO also launched HBO Now, giving users access to HBO outside of their cable package for the first time.
Afterwards AT&T Executives, who bought Time Warner in 2018 and changed its name to WarnerMedia, launched HBO Max in 2020 to gain more subscribers.
Three years later, after AT&T divested WarnerMedia and merged it with Discovery, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav changed the name of the service to Max to indicate the addition of Discovery programs to the service.
That decision was reversed last year when Zaslav and Bloys decided to return to the HBO Max name to highlight the strength of HBO’s programming.
