00:00HBO Max is coming back. Warner Bros. Discovery is renaming its streaming service. Again HBO became
00:07HBO Max and then it became Max. Now it will be HBO Max once more. Warner Bros. Discovery is
00:14renaming its streaming platform again starting this summer, restoring a name it ditched just
00:19two years ago. The company announced the rebranding Wednesday during its upfront
00:23presentation in New York. The change comes as Warner Bros. Discovery seeks to scale back its
00:28volume of content and focus on quality programming and storytelling. The powerful growth we have
00:35seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming, said David
00:40Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, in a statement. Today we are bringing back HBO, the brand that
00:48represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead. The
00:54company's streaming business has turned around its profitability by almost three billion dollars over
00:58the past two years, and scaled globally with around 22 million subscribers added in the past year.
01:05Warner Bros. Discovery aims to have more than 150 million subscribers by the end of 2026.
01:12Still, Warner Bros. Discovery lost live rights to National Basketball Association games beginning
01:17next season. The company has focused on paying down debt rather than spending on new content to
01:23compete with Netflix, which has more than 300 million subscribers. Ironically, the HBO Max branding was
01:29first introduced in 2019 to showcase HBO's competitive global streaming ambitions. Now Warner Bros. Discovery
01:36is bringing back the same name, but emphasizing the opposite, quality over quantity. We will continue to
01:42focus on what makes us unique, not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and
01:48great for adults and families, said J.B. Perrette, president and CEO of streaming at Warner Bros.
01:53Discovery, in a statement. It's really not subjective, not even controversial. Our programming just hits
02:00different. Competitor Disney has taken a similar tack, with CEO Bob Iger noting in recent investor calls
02:06that the way to win in streaming will be quality content. The legacy media companies have all struggled to
02:12achieve profitability in their streaming businesses since launching their own services in recent years.
02:17That has led to an increased emphasis on advertising tiers, crackdowns on password sharing, and more
02:23streaming service bundles. The upfronts week in New York has already been heavy on naming news.
02:29ESPN announced its upcoming flagship streaming app will be named simply ESPN. Fox said its forthcoming
02:36streamer will be named Fox One. Last week, Comcast's cable portfolio spinoff announced its new holding
02:42company name, Versant dot Warner Bros. Discovery first launched its standalone streaming service HBO Max in
02:482020, when the brand was still owned by AT&T. The Max moniker was added to signify that the platform would have a
02:55wide array of content, from reality TV, documentaries, kids programming, and movies, as well as the prestige branding
03:03of HBO titles. At the time, leadership believed HBO had too small of an audience, much of which was US-based, and that there was
03:11more value in making HBO a sub-brand within a larger streaming offering. The service was later renamed Max in
03:182023. That change came after the merging of Discovery Communications and WarnerMedia, which was divested from AT&T in
03:262022. Content from Discovery Plus was added to HBO Max under the new name. Now two years later, Warner Bros. Discovery has reversed course.
Comments