Longtime HBO subscribers were almost certainly delighted to hear earlier this year that their current HBO subscriptions would entitle them to a free upgrade to HBO Max.
After all, the highly anticipated and long awaited on-demand streaming service was set to encompass not just the already rich offerings available on HBO itself (including its untouchable library of original series like The Sopranos, Game of Thrones and Veep, just to name three), but content from the many brands under the Warner Media corporate umbrella, including DC Entertainment, the TNT and TBS networks, the legendary Turner Classic Movies (TCM) library, Cartoon Network, CNN and many more.
HBO, for most of the past decade, has been available in three different formats: the flagship cable channel (HBO), a streaming add-on for cable subscribers (HBO Go) and a standalone streaming app for users of Roku devices and other cord cutters (HBO Now). Parent company Warner Media (owned by AT&T) announced that HBO Max would be offered free to existing HBO cable subscribers and HBO Now customers billed directly via HBO. The HBO Now app would automatically transform into HBO Max, with all content available immediately upon launch.
As the countdown to the HBO Max launch headed toward its late May arrival, the company announced that deals were in the works for HBO Now customers who got billed through a third party — like, say, Apple TV — to also get upgraded automatically to HBO Max. Distribution deals with other platforms, ranging from Charter Spectrum to Xbox to Verizon, also fell into place.
“We feel really good about the distribution dynamic, the availability of the product,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said during a Wall Street conference two weeks before launch, according to Deadline. “Those that are HBO subscribers immediately move into Max. It’s going to be a really strong first day.”
While both services would continue to carry plain old HBO and HBO Now, HBO Max was going to be unavailable through either service for the foreseeable future (at press time, it’s not available on Dish Network either, but neither is HBO itself, due a whole different dispute between Dish and Warner that goes back to 2018, which we won’t get into here).
Although the three entities involved have been largely quiet or evasive on the reasons for HBO Max’s absence from the two platforms, the answer reportedly comes down to two things: money, of course, and what a non-marketing professional like me would describe as brand placement.
Read more
Everything on HBO Max: A Guide to the Movies and TV Shows of WarnerMedia’s Streaming Service
HBO Max New Releases: August 2020
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For now, it seems as if the streaming platforms have the upper hand: as an HBO subscriber already, I am jonesing to get at that TCM catalog (especially since we’re all sitting home a lot more these days). But I also have three Roku devices streaming in my house. I have no desire to reroute all my subscriptions and favorite apps, not to mention purchase an entirely new device, just to get one service. And I can still watch regular HBO Now in the meantime.
In the end, however, there is ultimately only one loser in any of these battles between corporate media monoliths: the consumer. Streaming was supposed to unlock a literal ocean of content new and old for viewers tired of the constricted cable TV model; this is no time to start building dams around it. We’ll eventually just swim somewhere else.
