UPDATE 5/23: HBO Max is dead, long live Max.
Warner Bros. Discovery says "a large portion" of HBO Max subscribers will have their apps updated today, while others will be prompted to download the new Max app. (Yes, you have to download a new app.) Discovery+ subscribers can sign up as new Max customers.
Plan details, profiles, avatars, settings, histories, and watchlists will transfer from HBO Max to Max. Existing HBO Max subscribers will have access to their current plan features for up to six months.
WBD notes that Max offers "nearly 8x more films and episodes of 4K UHD content than HBO Max," but as we note below, that comes with a price hike: $19.99/month or $199.99/year (up from $14.99 and $149.99) for four concurrent streams and up to 100 offline downloads.
Original Story 4/12:
Do you subscribe to HBO Max? Big changes are coming on May 23, when the streaming service is replaced with Max, which will merge HBO Max with content from Discovery+.
Warner Bros. Discovery today officially announced the rebrand, which is designed to better compete with Netflix and Disney+ for viewers. The good news is that Max will retain the same $9.99-per-month ad-supported tier that HBO Max currently offers.
But on the downside, Warner Bros. Discovery is taking away a few perks previously available on HBO Max. The company is dropping 4K video quality for the ad-free plan, relegating it to 1080p quality, and reducing the number of concurrent streams from three to two.
Instead, the company is bringing the 4K quality to a new “Ultimate” tier for Max, which will cost $19.99 per month and offer subscribers four concurrent streams. That's in line with Netflix's 4K Premium plan, which also costs $19.99 per month for four concurrent streams.
Warner Bros. Discovery is making several interface changes to Max that promise to improve the service's performance and make it easier to find content subscribers will like. In addition, the company announced numerous titles headed for Max, including an upcoming live action Harry Potter TV series and another series from the Game of Thrones universe.
Existing subscribers to HBO Max will “still have access to their current plan features for a minimum of six months following launch," the company said. Warner Bros. Discovery will then serve them up a prompt, asking them if they’d like to switch to the Ultimate plan.
Meanwhile, users on Discovery+, which costs $4.99 per month, will see no changes. The company is keeping the streaming service since it remains profitable. Warner Bros. Discovery, on the other hand, has $50 billion in debts it needs to pay off.
Finding Things to Watch Other Than Succession
The company’s goal with Max is to not only bring more paying users to the streaming service, but also to retain them. During a presentation on Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery streaming chief JB Perrette noted that “three quarters of the viewership” on HBO Max come from the streaming service’s home screen only.
“HBO Max has an amazing depth of content, but it’s largely unexplored because we don’t make it easy enough to find,” he added. “By comparison, on Discovery+, the majority of usage comes from other screens deeper in the app."
As a result, Warner Bros. Discovery is going to add more personalization and recommendation features into the new Max app. It’s also betting that bringing content over from Discovery+, which features unscripted TV series and documentaries, will attract more viewers to the new app. The company’s goal is to offer 40 new TV-focused titles and seasons every month, along with 20 movies each year.
However, Warner Bros. Discovery executives also insist the company is focused on quality, not quantity (Netflix says the same). This includes protecting and preserving HBO’s approach to making hit TV series, Perrette said.
“HBO is not TV. HBO is HBO,” he added. “It needs to stay that way, which is why we need to privilege it in the product experience, and also not push it to the breaking point by forcing it to take the full breadth of this new content proposition.”
Come May 23, most users in the US will see the HBO Max app automatically converted to the new Max service. Some subscribers will be required to download the new Max app, although Warner Bros. Discovery says this should only take two steps.
“HBO Max subscribers’ profiles, settings, watch history, ‘Continue Watching,’ and ‘My List’ items will also migrate to Max so they can pick up streaming right where they left off,” the company says. Max will also roll out to other markets, starting with Latin America this fall.