A forthcoming streaming service that combines the content libraries of HBO Max and Discovery Plus has a tentative name, according to a new report.
On Monday, financial news channel CNBC said executives at Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) are leaning toward calling their combined service “Max,” franchising the current name of its cornerstone streamer HBO Max, but without leveraging the HBO brand.
The company could still choose a different name for the service, reporters at CNBC cautioned, but the report said the company was leaning hard toward Max as the name for the forthcoming streamer.
The forthcoming streamer will franchise the content tiles available on HBO Max — where content is divided into sections, including HBO, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, TCM and other WBD brands — but will be more-prominent in the next version in a fashion that is similar to Disney Plus.
The new streaming service is expected to completely replace HBO Max and Discovery Plus — both of which have recently offered prospective streaming customers long-term deals if they agreed to pay for an annual subscription. It wasn’t clear how these annual customers to either service will be converted into Max customers when the streaming service launches; executives have set a tentative launch time frame of summer 2023.
As of November, WBD said it had more than 94 million global streaming subscribers.
