If you had anxiety about the impending merger of HBO Max and Discovery+, today’s news may not alleviate it, but it’s something, at least.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal(Opens in a new tab), the original plan to blend the two apps into one mega-app has been shelved. Instead, Discovery+ will live on as a separate app while HBO Max will be rebranded to just “Max.” The latter service will indeed be the aforementioned mega-app of our nightmares, mixing HBO’s premium cable content with Discovery’s reality-centric programming.
Warner Bros. Discovery (the parent company behind both apps) is apparently taking pricing into account before moving ahead with all of this, per Deadline(Opens in a new tab). HBO Max’s ad-free tier is currently on the higher end of streaming service prices, coming in at $16/mo. It’s hard to see Warner Bros. Discovery lowering the price, considering the new app will theoretically have more content, but hopefully there’s an off chance it stays the same.
It is worth wondering if the new Max app will be worth that price, though. Warner Bros. Discovery has taken a hatchet to HBO Max over the last year or so, canceling the Batgirl movie, removing several streaming-exclusive movies(Opens in a new tab) and TV shows(Opens in a new tab), and even cutting Sesame Street(Opens in a new tab). In their places are Discovery mainstays like the 90 Day Fiancé cinematic universe.
That may not be bad, necessarily, but it’s also arguably not what people originally went to HBO Max for. Today’s news may not be the healing balm that HBO Max fans have wanted for the last several months, but at least it’s confirmation that corporate bigwigs are often just winging it like we are.
