{"id":622820,"date":"2026-10-07T01:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T01:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/622820\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T01:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T01:42:09","slug":"hbo-max-paramount-to-combine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/622820\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO Max, Paramount+ to Combine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPerhaps Casey Bloys did not get the memo.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday, Skydance<\/a> Chairman and CEO David Ellison<\/a> told reporters that \u201clong term,\u201d he plans to \u201cbring [HBO Max<\/a>] and [Paramount+<\/a>] together\u201d as one streaming service.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019ll take a period of time to do that,\u201d Ellison said, referring to merging the two tech stacks. \u201cSo I think in the immediate you will see them operated separately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGiven the way AI technology and other things have progressed, we think we can actually accelerate how quickly we accomplish that goal,\u201d he continued, adding that \u201cbundling\u201d the services will be available \u201cin the relatively short term.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEllison said he could not be more specific today on the bundle options.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust last week, Bloys, who will head up all of streaming at the combined Paramount\/Warner Bros. Discovery, now simply called Skydance, said he believes HBO Max and Paramount+ will remain separate services with the option to be packaged together.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would say that I don\u2019t want to comment on what is going to happen or anything like that, but I would point to the HBO Max-Disney bundle, which has been very successful,\u201d Bloys said at Bloomberg\u2019s Screentime event<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo could you see something like that happening? That would make a lot of sense,\u201d he asked and then answered.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, there\u2019s a new plan, Casey. And actually, it\u2019s kind of the old plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn March, Ellison signaled to Wall Street that he plans to combine his main streamer with WBD\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe do plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct to consumer subscribers,\u201d he said on a call with investors. \u201cWe think that really positions us to compete with the leaders in the space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEllison reiterated that statistic at Tuesday\u2019s press conference, adding that the instantaneous doubling (basically) in DTC subs allows Skydance to \u201ccompete with the Disneys and Netflixes and Amazons and anybody in the world.\u201d (Tuesday was day one of operations for the new Skydance.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe HBO brand will continue to \u201coperate with independence,\u201d Ellison promised on the March call. \u201cCasey [Bloys] and his team do absolutely a remarkable job at HBO. We do plan for that to be able to operate with independence, so that HBO can, candidly, do what it does incredibly well. Our viewpoint is HBO should stay HBO. They built a phenomenal brand. They are a leader in the space, and we just want them to continue doing more of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps Casey Bloys did not get the memo. On Tuesday, Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison told reporters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[11948,156,3484,111,139,69,421,12795,437],"class_list":["post-622820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-david-ellison","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo-max","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paramount","tag-skydance","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622820","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=622820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}