{"id":121925,"date":"2025-11-06T23:31:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T23:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/121925\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T23:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T23:31:09","slug":"hbo-max-is-in-good-shape-no-matter-what-happens-to-wbd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/121925\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO Max Is in Good Shape, No Matter What Happens to WBD"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Zaslav<\/a> is usually more wistful about the beauty and legacy of his company on his earnings calls than most CEOs, but this morning, he got a question about what makes HBO<\/a> as a brand so unique and valuable in the event of the sale rumors \u2014 and the literal for sale sign<\/a> \u2014 that Warner Bros. Discovery put up a few weeks ago. <\/p>\n

The analyst teed him up, and Zas launched one out of the park with his praise for his own company. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis team has been together for almost 15 or 20 years,\u201d he said. \u201cThey love what they do, and they wake up every day and fight for the most compelling story, and people love to work with them, because there\u2019s a shared passion. At HBO, when you\u2019re working with Casey [Bloys] and Amy [Gravitt] and Franny [Orsi] and Sarah [Aubrey], when we get that series, we fight globally that everyone should see it and we believe in it, and this idea of community, of putting it on every Sunday night or Monday night or Thursday night, and having a real conversation about story. It feels old-fashioned, but it\u2019s extremely powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Andy<\/a> \"ALL<\/a> <\/p>\n

We\u2019ll give you a moment to wipe that tear out of your eye. But Zaslav isn\u2019t wrong that there aren\u2019t that many entertainment brands out there that, just by stamping their name on a project, it gives an added mark of prestige quality. He praised HBO further by saying it has never delivered a more consistent lineup of shows and documentaries that people regularly circle on their calendar as appointment television. It\u2019s why a lot of us were dumbfounded when WBD decided to remove the HBO moniker from HBO Max<\/a> \u2014 only to put it back a year later!<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also why one of the biggest questions, should Paramount (or whomever) wind up buying Warner Bros. Discovery, is: what happens to the streaming service, HBO Max, that houses all of that HBO content? Would Paramount really keep around two streaming services<\/a> when it already has one of its own? Analysts have long said not every major streamer will be able to survive, and consolidation is just one way that can happen.<\/p>\n

Zaslav, in the company\u2019s earnings release, stressed that it would not have any new announcements or take any questions on a potential sale (he said, \u201cIt\u2019s fair to say that we have an active process underway\u201d), so this morning\u2019s call was a letdown in that regard. But he did say that, when it comes to HBO Max, the streamer is well-positioned, regardless of what happens to the company.<\/p>\n

Warner Bros. Discovery as part of its earnings today announced that it has 128 million global subscribers (WBD doesn\u2019t break out subs for an individual service, so that\u2019s inclusive of HBO, HBO Max, and Discovery+), an increase of about 3 million from the prior quarter. Zas also said he hopes to reach 150 million globally by next year. If they can do that, they can start really rolling in the Benjamins, because CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said the company has shifted from an external to internal monetization of the company\u2019s library \u2014 meaning they\u2019re not licensing as much as they were and are mining other library content better, and it\u2019s paying off.<\/p>\n

In context of just how Warner Bros. Discovery was leveraging its deeper library of titles, streaming chief JB Perrette chimed in to explain that the way the rights are currently set up, even in the event Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max separate from Discovery and the cable channels<\/a>, the streaming service will still have access to all those cable shows that they believe makes HBO Max worth the sticker price. Zaslav clarified \u201cthat will be the case even if in fact HBO Max goes ahead and splits as planned, if Warner is acquired as Warner, and if the company is acquired in whole, then they\u2019ll have access to everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last bit is of course the key, that if someone else buys the company whole cloth, well they can do whatever they want with it and would have access to all the content as they see fit, and maybe that means getting rid of it altogether. But even if someone buys the more valuable studios side of the company with HBO Max in tow, it doesn\u2019t mean HBO Max would suddenly lose all its HGTV or Food Network shows in addition to the HBO shows and WB films. <\/p>\n

Part of the reason HBO Max is well positioned is that it\u2019s still growing better than some of its competitors, and it\u2019s doing it despite not really having the same breadth of sports or live content that others do. WBD is building its own standalone sports streamer and even taking another stab at a CNN standalone app that they believe can be bundled with HBO Max. But Zaslav further admitted that in the U.S. (not so internationally), he \u201cdidn\u2019t find that sports were providing enough value for us in incremental subs,\u201d and while there was some engagement, HBO Max on its own just works much better as a place for movies and shows and that it\u2019s \u201cnot dependent on rental sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a little bit of spin. Warner Bros. Discovery lost out on the NBA<\/a> after being its longtime home for years, including some of its signature talent like Charles Barkley on \u201cInside the NBA.\u201d If it did still have the NBA, surely it would be touting it. But Zaslav\u2019s point is that you subscribe to HBO Max because you want to watch \u201cThe Pitt\u201d or \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d or \u201cSuperman,\u201d and less so because it has some basketball games. Peacock and Paramount+ have some solid shows, but you\u2019re signing up because you can stream the NBA, the Olympics, the NFL, or the NCAA Tournament. <\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s a mark against HBO Max\u2019s survival in the long run, that it doesn\u2019t have the same appointment sports that Amazon Prime Video does or the complete breadth of live news and sports that Disney+ is now offering all bundled together with Hulu and ESPN.<\/p>\n

But as a place that just has a lot of really good movies and shows, yeah, we\u2019ll sign up for more of that. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Zaslav is usually more wistful about the beauty and legacy of his company on his earnings calls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[16650,156,2592,3484,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-121925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-david-zaslav","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hbo","11":"tag-hbo-max","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}