Parent company discovery+ and HBO Max will merge services in the US in 2023

Warner Bros. Discovery will replace its streaming platform HBO Max with a new platform, which will be a combination of that platform and discovery +. The combined streaming service should be available in the US in the summer of 2023. Other countries will follow after that.

According to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has called HBO Max a “competitive feature set,” referring to the hit movies and series, as well as “performance and customer issues,” referring to the heavy buffering that viewers sometimes experience. Discovery+ would be much more reliable on the technical side, which is why the company wants to combine the forces of the two streaming platforms into a single new one.

The company has not yet announced what the new platform will be called and what it will cost, but a price increase is not inconceivable, because the offer of the two platforms will be combined. The CEO assured listeners of the quarterly earnings discussion that the company does not intend to cancel series and films left and right. The movie Batgirlwhich is almost finished, was recently canceled.

The company was very open about the intentions, but when the merger will take place is not yet known. For the time being, HBO Max and discovery + cost respectively 6 and 4 euros per month in the Netherlands.

At the meeting, the company also reported sales of $9.8 billion and a loss of $3.42 billion. The company is brand new: on April 8, it was formed from a merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc. Warner Bros. Discovery wants to provide more information about plans for an event for investors before the end of this year.