With the dust still settling on Skydance’s blockbuster merger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), there is already speculation about what will happen to streaming platforms Paramount Plus and HBO Max.
Details on the fate of HBO Max and Paramount Plus are still unknown, but it seems certain that a bundle that offers access to programming from both services is coming in the near future, if not a full-on combination of the platforms down the road.
For consumers, the merger might be viewed as good on the wallet: Nearly half of Americans surveyed by payments technology developer Bango said they intend to subscribe to a bundle that pairs Paramount Plus and HBO Max in the near future, should Skydance decide to launch one.
Consumers in younger demographics are more open to the bundle, with 52 percent of Generation Z shoppers and 55 percent of Millennials finding a forthcoming Paramount Plus-HBO Max plan deserving of their dollars, Bango’s study revealed.
The data was shared with The Desk this week ahead of a new consumer report by Bango that gauges sentiment across various subscription platforms, including streaming services. That report, based on a survey of 2,500 American consumers last month, is expected to be published soon.
Skydance closed on its acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery on Tuesday, bringing assets like CBS News, CNN, Cartoon Network, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, TBS, TNT, Discovery Channel, Paramount Pictures, HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, The Movie Channel, Flix, Channel 5 UK, Network 10 Australia and Eurosport under the same roof.
The combined Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery also includes more than two dozen licensed TV stations operated by CBS, as well as streaming products like Pluto TV, Discovery Plus and dozens of free, ad-supported streaming content feeds programmed by both companies.
While sentiment over a media mega-merger was mixed, Bango’s data found only one in five American shoppers would avoid a bundle that pairs Paramount Plus with HBO Max.
Paramount co-CEO David Ellison expressed interest last year in merging HBO Max’s content library into Paramount Plus down the road, but executives have since offered mixed opinions on the fate of the streaming platforms. According to some reports, Paramount Plus and HBO Max will maintain separate brand identities and content libraries for a while longer.
One long-term strategy under consideration will allow consumers to purchase an add-on to HBO Max or Paramount Plus in the other’s service. Another possible plan calls for HBO Max’s technical stack and content library to be integrated into Paramount Plus — similar to how Skydance relaunched Pluto TV using the same technology that powers Paramount Plus over the summer — but with the promise that customers who only want HBO Max shows, movies, documentaries and sports can pay for it separate from Paramount Plus, without any commitment to the other service.
On paper, HBO Max is the stronger streaming business, with a larger global subscriber count and higher quarterly revenue compared to Paramount Plus. WBD’s streaming business counted nearly 130 million global streaming customers by the end of the second quarter (Q2), compared to 81.6 million global streaming subscribers who pay for a Paramount streaming app.
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