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  • 5/14/2025
HBO became HBO Max, and then it became Max. Now, it will be HBO Max once more.

Warner Bros. Discovery
is renaming its streaming platform again starting this summer, restoring a name it ditched just two years ago. The company announced the rebranding Wednesday during its upfront presentation in New York.

The change comes as Warner Bros. Discovery seeks to scale back its volume of content and focus on quality programming and storytelling.

“The powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming,” said David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, in a statement. “Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead.”

The company’s streaming business has turned around its profitability by almost $3 billion over the past two years and scaled globally with around 22 million subscribers added in the past year. Warner Bros. Discovery aims to have more than 150 million subscribers by the end of 2026.

Still, Warner Bros. Discovery lost live rights to National Basketball Association games beginning next season. The company has focused on paying down debt rather than spending on new content to compete with Netflix
, which has more than 300 million subscribers. R impact X

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Transcript
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.

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