Twenty-five months after stripping “HBO” from its prestige streaming brand in an effort to make it more broadly appealing, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it’s restoring the platform’s moniker to “HBO Max.”
“You’re probably thinking, ‘Wow, these guys really love to rebrand,'” said former Netflix executive Shauna Spencer, now chief marketing officer for WBD’s global direct-to-consumer efforts, explaining the switch to advertisers during the media company’s upfront presentation at Madison Square Garden in New York Wednesday morning, as reported by Deadline, among other media outlets.
“Well, you know, it’s been about two years, so that’s been our track record. I’d say now is about the right time,” Spencer added.
In a statement announcing the change, WBD CEO David Zaslav described HBO as “the brand that represents the highest quality in media.”
But when Zaslav and his Discovery team took over Warner Bros. in 2022 following the merger of the two media companies, they decided to move away from the prestige HBO brand and shift to a broader-skewing programming model, infusing content from other WBD channels including Discovery, Food Network, HGTV and TLC.
In a cost-cutting move, Zaslav notoriously purged the erstwhile “Max” of legacy content, including popular HBO shows like Westworld. Only a handful of shows, he said, were driving the vast majority of viewership.
Max has been delivering sizable growth recently — as WBD pointed out in its presentation Wednesday, it added 22 million subscribers in the past year, and is on track to reach 150 million streaming customers by 2026. In the first quarter, WBD’s DTC efforts generated a growing profit of $339 million.
But Zaslav’s original calculus as to what shows are producing his streaming platform’s engagement seems to have been off. Prestige series under the “HBO Originals” brand, including House of the Dragon, The White Lotus and The Last of Us have generated some of Max’s biggest audiences. Other Max original hits including the Emmy-winning Hacks and hugely popular new show The Pitt don’t carry HBO branding, but they seem nonetheless to be perceived as quality television befitting of the storied HBO moniker.
“We will continue to focus on what makes us unique – not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and great for adults and families. It’s really not subjective, not even controversial – our programming just hits different,” said JB Perrette, WBD’s president and CEO of streaming, in Wednesday’s company statement.
Added Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content: “With the course we are on and strong momentum we are enjoying, we believe HBO Max far better represents our current consumer proposition. And it clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for.”