The HBO Max/Discovery+ Merged Service Sets Pricing — Report
Sometime in the next few months, the long-awaited/dreaded union of HBO Max with Discovery+ is set to begin. One of the many questions that subscribers of both Warner Bros. Discovery services have had as that day approaches is how much of a price hike the new streamer will have. And as it turns out? It won’t have one at all, Bloomberg reports.
According to Bloomberg, Warner Bros. Discovery will keep the advertising-supported tier of the new service at its current price of $10, while the ad-free premium version will cost $15-$16 per month; it used to cost $15.99, after the service made its first price increase this past January. The company instead plans to sell a new subscription that offers higher video quality and other possible features to consumers for a marked-up price of roughly $20 dollars per month.
IndieWire has reached out to representatives of Warner. Bros Discovery for comment.
The new service — currently officially unnamed but expected by many to be called Max — will feature all of HBO Max’s programming (or what’s left of it currently) along with thousands of hours of content from Discovery+. The two services have vastly different brands; HBO Max is best known for hosting shows from the premium cable network HBO and original prestige programming as well as for its deep vault of classic films. Discovery+ hosts hours of reality and factual programming from Discovery’s cable TV brands, with entries in franchises like “90 Day Fiancé” and “Dr. Pimple Popper.”
Although originally announced as a merger between HBO Max and Discovery+, the move is in practice more of a reformatting for Max, which will likely lost the HBO branding and gain thousands of new shows from its sister streamer. Discovery+. Discovery+, meanwhile, will retain a separate streamer from HBO Max, likely due to the significant price difference; currently, it costs only $4.99 per month with ads and $6.99 without ads. In total, both streamers have 96.1 million subscribers each, the majority of whom use HBO Max.
Warner Bros. Discovery plans to unveil additional information about the merged service — as well as their proposed in-house FAST service — during a press day scheduled for April 12. The new streamer is expected to roll out to consumers in the weeks following the event.