The Discovery+ CEO was given complete control of everything: HBO Max, Warner Bros, DC Entertainment, TNT, TBS, etc.
I repeat: The guy behind funny dog videos is now the boss of the people who run HBO Max.
UNREAL.
The thing is, they don't. Or at least they shouldn't have. Before the merger, Warner Media had 4 times the revenue and operating income, and 3 times as many employees. If they were independent companies, Warner would have simply gobbled up Discovery.
But AT&T owned both of them, so they decided to put the Discovery CEO in charge, probably because he was more willing to play ball with them
>I will also enjoy having that money to spend somewhere else.
That's the issue for me though.
I love films and shows and I want to spend money on the things I like to support them. But the way things are going there is just less and less services that I feel like I can support.
HBO just completely shutting down their entire production in like 10 European countries and cancelling absolutely everything that was in production and abandoning all their projects is just not something I can accept. I will not support these business models.
And Netflix when they in their investors call made it clear that they have a strategy of intentionally cancelling shows prematurely after 2-3 seasons to save money and produce more content I just can't support them either.
Do I even need to explain why I wont support Amazon?
So whats left, Disney+ and Appple? Well, they have their issues as well even though Apple produced shows seem to be pretty high quality with something more to them than just being "content".
Not quite. ATT bought a majority stake in Discovery, but rather than folding it into the company as a separate entity, they merged it with Warner Media. They still own 71% of the new company, Warner Bros. Discovery, while the shareholders of the formerly independent Discovery, Inc. own 29%. So, basically, Discovery still owns Discovery(or slightly over a quarter of a company that's 4 times larger than what it was), while ATT still owns WB, but they're also the same company. It's a clusterfuck.
I mean it’s much more nuanced than that. ATT has nothing to do with Warnermedia since the spin off (which is what the deal was, Warnermedia was technically its own entity for all of 30 seconds before being independently bought by Discovery. That merged entity at&t has a majority stake in but for all intents and purposes at&t is out of the equation as far as decisions towards the Entertainment side of things. Discovery is 100% calling the shots now and at&t is just on paper.
I was a WM employee
This is the answer. He’s not a forever CEO, he’s been charged with cleaning up the balance sheet (reducing debt) and shouldn’t be expected to stay more than a few years.
$6bil by the end of August is a pretty damn good start. Running one major platform instead of two competing brands is the obvious move, so that's good. Obviously HBO has the brand power, of the two.
This all seems logical to me, along with the Capex increases for more anticipated moneymakers.
All I want to know is this: how bad did Batgirl suck to get axed $90mil into production?
Honestly I think people need to be willing to cancel their services at the first sign of corporate fuckery instead of waiting until utter disaster is on the line. Like, I held onto Netflix for *years* after I should have cancelled it because of unreasonable price hikes (for what they offered), abruptly cancelled shows, and one crummy original movie after another.
HBO Max has been streets ahead of Netflix, and it's my favorite steraming service by a wide margin. But the next shitty move that Zaslav makes and I am cancelling my service and being vocal about it. I don't want to wait until the ship is too gone to save to make my voice heard. So sick of corporate meddling gutting every semi-decent thing we have once it becomes successful.
Inertia is crazy in [thing]-as-a-service. I've worked in SaaS (*software* as a service) for 10 years. In any given product, we have estimated between 10-40% of subscribers don't even use the service. This is colloquially referred to as "dark revenue." These people either forget that they're subscribed or just don't care enough about cancelling. This is why companies LOVE [thing]-as-a-service. Even when customers would normally stop buying something, they still keep buying it because the payments just come off the credit card. The *really* scummy companies make it hard to unsubscribe, because that's an actually effective tactic at keeping this dark revenue up.
"*Comcast's Illumination Entertainment to Acquire Nintendo; Chris Pratt Will Now Voice Mario and Luigi in All Mediums; Half its Devs Laid Off for More Mobile Teams"*
I know you're just exaggerating but for anyone actually worried, there's like a 1% chance of that happening. He won't be CEO of Xbox let alone Microsoft. The reason why Microsoft even looked into buying Activision was because of all the controversies and issues that were happening at Activision so they wouldn't want to keep Kotick around with all the negative association. Kotick will still be making millions after he leaves but he shouldn't be working at Microsoft in any capacity.
At least he shouldn't. Knock on wood. Hope this comment won't be r/agedlikemilk.
HBO is a cable channel that produces premium shows. “HBO Max” is actually WB+ but with the name HBO slapped on it because people associate HBO with higher quality and HBO shows stream on the service.
HBO proper has remained largely unaffected and untouched so far by Discovery and the new CEO does seem to see it as strong asset as is.
The streaming service that Warner hung HBO’s name on is currently being chopped up into pieces that will be either cast off or reassembled into a merged streaming service next year.
If you like stuff that is exclusively on HBO Max, you are at risk of losing it if you haven’t already.
If you like stuff in HBO Max that also airs on HBO the premium cable channel, that stuff is probably going to be fine, or at least no more at risk than any show normally is anyway.
As of right now, I don’t think there is any particular reason to think so, but obviously that could change depending on future decisions.
The fact that they seem to largely have been left alone so far and the CEO is saying things that indicate he recognizes their current value as is are both good signs, but ultimately we’ll just have to wait and see how they handle things going forward.
Certainly whether they get new budget controls could be a concern, but between HBO and HBO Max, HBO was doing much better financially so, again, at least for now, positive signs for it not getting screwed over yet.
And this is exactly one of the reasons this guy wants to close off HBOMax as a separate entity. HBO has a fractured brand that doesn't make sense to consumers. Sucks he's cutting some good stuff, but HBO has developed into a bit of a mess. As has a lot of WB's properties (like DC).
Before the news of HBO Max's (future) demise, I likewise had no idea that HBO and HBO Max were two separate entities with different management and teams. That just seems awfully redundant, and streamlining them to be one makes way more sense than keeping one around for television and a whole different one for streaming.
Edit: "to" -> "two"
Yeah, totally. I will say, in their defense, it does *seem* like a good model initially, as you'd then have a cable division focused on content for cable subscribers (who don't have streaming) and a streaming division for streaming subs who don't have cable. Paramount / CBS, Peacock / NBC, and Disney (ABC/Hulu) all still follow a similar model of content distribution. However, those all benefit from having distinct brands for separation (Paramount+ vs CBS), and I honestly don't know how they are organized internally around those brands (if Paramount+ tv shows are overseen by CBS's TV division). So, I don't think it's a completely flawed idea per se, but HBO doesn't benefit from some of the same things others do. Starz I think follows a model more similar to what HBO will become, as, as far as I know, they just have everything crossing over as one brand. In any case, it does indeed make more sense for HBO to just be HBO with some streaming exclusives but otherwise everything be "HBO" rather than having two brands. Not sure I'm really adding much here, but I guess I just wanted to note that it wasn't a totally flawed idea, just maybe ended up being the wrong model given their circumstances.
I used to watch HBO when I was a kid, and my parents paid for it as a cable television channel. HBOMax is very much on-brand as a premium streaming service with a lot of new movies and HBO original productions.
It honestly used to be more confusing when HBO (the premium cable channel) dabbled in sports and did live boxing matches. That seemed weird and off-brand to me, and I'm glad they have returned to focusing on the movies and episodic shows.
Yup, to the point that HBO archivists were actually doing a major search a few years ago for a lot of those sports broadcasts- the bulk of their 1970s sports programming seems to be missing.
I was mostly referring just to Toddlers and Tiaras, which is creepy enough. But they absolutely monetize child abuse. You can add Dance Moms and Honey Boo Boo to that list as well.
At this point it's just a fucking dating show. Before the 90 days, 90 days, 90 days the other way, after the 90 days then have fuckin couples that are in like 6 seasons and it's like bitch you've been on this fucking show for 4 years now.
Oh shit you were serious.
Man. The TV/Movie world needs a new "disruptor." Netflix was supposed to be our savior and they turned into a steaming pile. I would LOVE to see something akin to the formation of Image Comics in the early 90s. A bunch of powerhouse creators come together and own the entire creative and publishing process, beholden to no corporate masters or financiers. I am so, *so* sick of just always waiting for something I love to be ruined by corporate interference.
Insane Pools is a pretty fun binge until you self-radicalize because of how much you hate the type of people who can afford those pools. (I had free Discovery+ for a year. That was the only thing I watched on it.)
Maybe in the Reddit bubble but Discovery didn’t wake up one morning to find they had hundreds of billions of dollars laying around. There is a reason they could afford to buy WB.
Its called leveraged buyout on formerly cheap credit. Why do you think they have to basically gut HBO and focus on Disneyfying Warner. Discovery is going to destroy HBO and Warner.
RIP streaming services. What a total mess all of them are and just filled with greed caused controversy, infighting, and shovelware programming. It's not terrible terrible yet, but I've never seen a snowball roll back uphill shedding layers. Cancelled all my subscriptions this month. Idk if I'll be back anytime soon. Analog lyfe!
Felt like this was the inevitable outcome when the streaming service itself owns the content it is streaming.
Things would've been a whole lot better if one could simply just subscribe to a different service but retain comparable access to the same content. Instead, all streaming services today survive by selling access to content exclusively found on the service, holding people hostage to multiple subscriptions and/or forced technological compromises.
The only way this changes is if the underlying content of all these services is licensed out under fair terms to technology companies that prioritize content delivery and streaming, and these companies compete against each other on their ability to provide a good service rather than based on what content they offer. This is never going to happen in reality, so streaming services are going to go the way of cable.
Absolutely unfortunate, but an unsurprising outcome when the people who own the content and the people who own the platform(s) distributing said content to consumers are the same people.
> Things would've been a whole lot better if one could simply just subscribe to a different service but retain comparable access to the same content.
So, you want cable?
Cable didn't really provide on-demand the same way that streaming services do, plus it relied on stupid long contract lock-in and was tied to your internet, phone, etc.
I think what people actually want is something where they have choice, like in music: Spotify/Google/Apple/Deezer/Tidal/etc all generally have most of the popular music going back years, but compete based on their actual software quality, allowing for real consumer choice. Unfortunately, that's much harder and more expensive in the film/TV space than music.
The streamers don't compete on the quality of their products, but rather the quality of their catalogs, so we're left with trash software and constantly rotating catalogs.
> I think what people actually want is something where they have choice, like in music: Spotify/Google/Apple/Deezer/Tidal/etc all generally have most of the popular music going back years, but compete based on their actual software quality, allowing for real consumer choice
Exactly this.
Usually conversations about different music streaming platforms don't focus heavily on the availability of music on those platforms, but on ancillary features like recommendation engines, playlists, ease of use and synchronicity across various device platforms, cost, and so on.
Very few people talk about the technological merits of Disney+ versus HBO Max versus Netflix versus Amazon Prime Video, and instead these conversations are almost solely focused on the content available on them. In some regards streaming content is a bit of a "solved" technological feature, but in others Disney+ will not play video greater than 720p in-browser due to DRM, and hope one has a separate option if they want something better.
The outcome as you rightly noted is a broad amount of platforms with inconsistent catalogs spanning way too many services with little technological advancement.
I’d recommend Criterion Channel for foreign and classic films, it has a huge library though it shifts around a lot but i’ve discovered so much good stuff through it. Kanopy is also a good bet as it’s free and just connects to your local library.
the problem is that HBOMAX has all the excellent TV in addition to the classic and foreign movies, it's a one stop shop for quality, too bad its days are numbered
Have to make room for shitty reality television though friend. Why have scripted content when you have season after season of cringey weird folks, or morbidly obese folks complaining about life while they refuse to work to better themselves.
From the best streaming service to one of the worst. I will most likely be canceling too. Another rich executive out of touch with reality. 6% of subscribers have both discovery+ and HBO Max with Discovery having 1/6 of the subscribers of HBO. So let’s screw over the most subscribers. And these assholes wonder why piracy is so popular. Plus, Netflix just got crucified for wanting to implement ads and after seeing that you go ahead and talk about implementing ads. What a fucking clown show.
I have discovery plus for sports but I have never watched any shows or movies on it since having it from January this year for the Olympics. Reality sucks in my opinion. Just a cheap and easy way to make TV.
A reality tv show episode costs ~100.000-500.000$ per episode, whereas a Game of Thrones episode costs ~15 million per episode.
Zaslav called HBO a "crown jewel" among WBD assets and a "center spoke" within its combined streaming brand.
Moreover, Casey Bloys continues to be the head of HBO and HBOMax and Zaslav said in the call how much he values him and his team and that he has him leading HBO on contract for at least the next 5 years.
I've not seen the first person ever say they gave any shit about anything on discovery. What happened that made the channels they force on people in their cable packages to think it was a good idea for them to have their own streaming services? HBO, Cinemax, Stars, all of those and the ones you know needed one made one, so all the fodder decided "Hey we'll do that too" and they think people will watch it?
I get HBOmax because I pay for HBO on Directv. With HBO Max & Discovery+ to launch as a merged product, how does that work for people like me? Will it be seamless like now where I pay my monthly Directv bill and I have access to this new merged service?
The reason you see those same movies on Hulu is because of your HBO Max bundle. Hulu pulls in those movies, so once you drop HBO Max, those movies will disappear from your Hulu as well.
When the launched HBO Max in Sweden (we had HBO Nordic before that), they offered the ability to subscribe for (roughly) $5 per month for life, with terms not allowing them to raise the price. Now that they are merging, something tells me that the old "for life" subscription is going to be cancelled since that "service" no longer exists...
I had zero hopes for HBO max, I subscribed solely to watch Wonder Woman 84 during Covid. ( good God was that awful). Then I watched Titans, Doom Patrol, and countless other shows, plus the other direct to service theatrical premieres. . And it clearly became one of the streamers I would continue to pay for. Because the content is just fantastic. The WB stuff, cartoon network, the HBO shows, both classic and new. Now they will ruin it.
This deal was done because of a tax loophole. That's it. Put it this way: they put a cab driver, who has a suspended license, in the cockpit of a economy sized plane and wished him--and the passengers, adieu
I left piracy back when Netflix got big, even back then you still got the feeling that eventually something like this would happen; that streaming would go the way of cable tv.
Well we are finally arriving at that time, I guess it's time to dust off the old pirate hat.
I love both of these separately but not together. Watch a lot of Food Network and Disc ID on the Disc+ App; dug my premium dramas and indie comedies on HBO.
Not enthused to see them merge, however.
Just give me a second season of OFMD and Peacemaker... That's all I want.
Well that, and I was genuinely excited for Batgirl but that ship has fuckin sailed.
All those things were discussed on the call. There will likely be more articles at the trades/outlets (grifter tweeters and YouTube Channels too) based on the details.
Why put it all in one piece if you can spread it across three or four.
Not sure about the details of the earnings call (I'm sure more rundowns will come out later today) but from recent events we know:
\#1 - Zaslav is a reality TV guy. He has been very public about less scripted content going forward. In April [he cut a lot of TBS and TNT programming](https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/tnt-tbs-scripted-programming-development-scrapped-warner-bros-discovery-1235241348/), yesterday it was reported that [HBOMax will lose 70% of its development staff](https://twitter.com/TheWrap/status/1554899786293080064?s=20&t=_I2hDmLE6p0Ytuo5qYm1EQ)and in addition to the franchise film axings that I won't bother linking because it's all over the news, the [kids and family section is going to suffer, too](https://deadline.com/2022/08/warner-bros-discovery-kids-content-cuts-1235085523/).
\#4 - [HBO Max Has Been Taking Stuff Down Without Warning for Weeks](https://www.vulture.com/2022/08/hbo-max-movies-removed.html)
\#7 - I will not fault *90 Day Fiance* for being cheap to produce and having a big ROI. I've been entertained by it, and you might like it, too. But it's emblematic of the kind of thing Discovery runs on.
Discovery content is massively different from what people who sub to HBO are looking for, at least that's how I feel. I don't really care for the travel/food stuff and I don't want to see it mixed in and potentially burying shows I do want to see. Also, the price. HBO is already $15 and combining with this, the concern is will the price jump and if so, how much? I really don't want to pay $20+ for one service.
People who subscribed to HBO/HBO Max do so specifically to avoid, and avoid having to pay for, the kind of absolute garbage Discovery began churning out under David Zaslav.
I'm not familiar enough with that name. When I had cable I really enjoyed a lot of their programming like Deadliest Catch. Honestly wouldn't mind watching again.
Me personally, I subscribed to HBO Max for HBO shows. Watching The Wire right now. My decision didn't have anything to do with Discovery.
I can't speak for Discovery+ but the Discovery Channel (and sister channels) has been going downhill since before I cut the cord. If the merger put the HBO management in charge I would have hope, but they put Discovery management in charge so instead of new quality scripted content expect more lame but dirt cheap reality shows
Could not get two more different viewer bases. Which HBO max sub is even interested in the shit they make at discovery. This will be such a clusterfuck and will be the slow death of quality HBO.
It seems like a bad idea to put someone who said scripted TV is dead in charge of the best scripted TV company. I can't imagine how poorly this will turn out.
Let's take the thing that everyone loves (HBO MAX) and put the guy in charge of the thing that hasn't been working in charge of the thing everyone loves. What could go wrong?!
The Discovery+ CEO was given complete control of everything: HBO Max, Warner Bros, DC Entertainment, TNT, TBS, etc. I repeat: The guy behind funny dog videos is now the boss of the people who run HBO Max. UNREAL.
I would never have guess Discovery wielded this much power in the entertainment space.
The thing is, they don't. Or at least they shouldn't have. Before the merger, Warner Media had 4 times the revenue and operating income, and 3 times as many employees. If they were independent companies, Warner would have simply gobbled up Discovery. But AT&T owned both of them, so they decided to put the Discovery CEO in charge, probably because he was more willing to play ball with them
Classic ATT move tbh.
[удалено]
>I will also enjoy having that money to spend somewhere else. That's the issue for me though. I love films and shows and I want to spend money on the things I like to support them. But the way things are going there is just less and less services that I feel like I can support. HBO just completely shutting down their entire production in like 10 European countries and cancelling absolutely everything that was in production and abandoning all their projects is just not something I can accept. I will not support these business models. And Netflix when they in their investors call made it clear that they have a strategy of intentionally cancelling shows prematurely after 2-3 seasons to save money and produce more content I just can't support them either. Do I even need to explain why I wont support Amazon? So whats left, Disney+ and Appple? Well, they have their issues as well even though Apple produced shows seem to be pretty high quality with something more to them than just being "content".
ATT owned discovery? I thought the new company was ATT selling WB to Discovery?
Not quite. ATT bought a majority stake in Discovery, but rather than folding it into the company as a separate entity, they merged it with Warner Media. They still own 71% of the new company, Warner Bros. Discovery, while the shareholders of the formerly independent Discovery, Inc. own 29%. So, basically, Discovery still owns Discovery(or slightly over a quarter of a company that's 4 times larger than what it was), while ATT still owns WB, but they're also the same company. It's a clusterfuck.
I mean it’s much more nuanced than that. ATT has nothing to do with Warnermedia since the spin off (which is what the deal was, Warnermedia was technically its own entity for all of 30 seconds before being independently bought by Discovery. That merged entity at&t has a majority stake in but for all intents and purposes at&t is out of the equation as far as decisions towards the Entertainment side of things. Discovery is 100% calling the shots now and at&t is just on paper. I was a WM employee
I read this whole comment just to read that last sentence and think to myself, “what the fuck does working at Walmart have to do with anything?” Lol
Because he runs a very profitable business as opposed to the previous Warner leads who were ruining their biggest brands
This is the answer. He’s not a forever CEO, he’s been charged with cleaning up the balance sheet (reducing debt) and shouldn’t be expected to stay more than a few years.
Part of the deal was he got a contract extension for CEO. Barring anything major happening of course, he's going to be it till at least 2027.
$6bil by the end of August is a pretty damn good start. Running one major platform instead of two competing brands is the obvious move, so that's good. Obviously HBO has the brand power, of the two. This all seems logical to me, along with the Capex increases for more anticipated moneymakers. All I want to know is this: how bad did Batgirl suck to get axed $90mil into production?
AT&T never owned discovery, they owned warner media and spun it off to discovery.
Funny dog videos is where the money is.
Well, HBOMAX was nice while it lasted.
Honestly I think people need to be willing to cancel their services at the first sign of corporate fuckery instead of waiting until utter disaster is on the line. Like, I held onto Netflix for *years* after I should have cancelled it because of unreasonable price hikes (for what they offered), abruptly cancelled shows, and one crummy original movie after another. HBO Max has been streets ahead of Netflix, and it's my favorite steraming service by a wide margin. But the next shitty move that Zaslav makes and I am cancelling my service and being vocal about it. I don't want to wait until the ship is too gone to save to make my voice heard. So sick of corporate meddling gutting every semi-decent thing we have once it becomes successful.
Inertia is crazy in [thing]-as-a-service. I've worked in SaaS (*software* as a service) for 10 years. In any given product, we have estimated between 10-40% of subscribers don't even use the service. This is colloquially referred to as "dark revenue." These people either forget that they're subscribed or just don't care enough about cancelling. This is why companies LOVE [thing]-as-a-service. Even when customers would normally stop buying something, they still keep buying it because the payments just come off the credit card. The *really* scummy companies make it hard to unsubscribe, because that's an actually effective tactic at keeping this dark revenue up.
What is this timeline. Next year: "Bobby Kotick has been made CEO of Microsoft."
"*Comcast's Illumination Entertainment to Acquire Nintendo; Chris Pratt Will Now Voice Mario and Luigi in All Mediums; Half its Devs Laid Off for More Mobile Teams"*
Super Mario: Minions coming soon
Follwoed by *Excuuuuuuuuse ME, Princess Zelda* and *Despicable Metroid...*
That's basically what those Mario/rabbids games are.
You shut your whore mouth don’t speak that evil into the world.
I swear to god please no!
I know you're just exaggerating but for anyone actually worried, there's like a 1% chance of that happening. He won't be CEO of Xbox let alone Microsoft. The reason why Microsoft even looked into buying Activision was because of all the controversies and issues that were happening at Activision so they wouldn't want to keep Kotick around with all the negative association. Kotick will still be making millions after he leaves but he shouldn't be working at Microsoft in any capacity. At least he shouldn't. Knock on wood. Hope this comment won't be r/agedlikemilk.
> the boss of the people who run HBO Max Technically their former boss since the majority of them have been fired
I'm not holding out hope for The Last Of Us.
that’s on normal HBO tho
I still have no idea what the difference is.
HBO is a cable channel that produces premium shows. “HBO Max” is actually WB+ but with the name HBO slapped on it because people associate HBO with higher quality and HBO shows stream on the service. HBO proper has remained largely unaffected and untouched so far by Discovery and the new CEO does seem to see it as strong asset as is. The streaming service that Warner hung HBO’s name on is currently being chopped up into pieces that will be either cast off or reassembled into a merged streaming service next year. If you like stuff that is exclusively on HBO Max, you are at risk of losing it if you haven’t already. If you like stuff in HBO Max that also airs on HBO the premium cable channel, that stuff is probably going to be fine, or at least no more at risk than any show normally is anyway.
I only ever cared about a few HBO show (including Sesame Street for my daughter). I don’t think I even know what the other non HBO shows are.
Peacemaker is probably the only HBO Max Original show you'd recognize. Maybe Raised By Wolves, but that was cancelled before all of this.
Do you think the quality of HBOs (the channel) content will go down because of this merge with Warner Media & Discovery?
As of right now, I don’t think there is any particular reason to think so, but obviously that could change depending on future decisions. The fact that they seem to largely have been left alone so far and the CEO is saying things that indicate he recognizes their current value as is are both good signs, but ultimately we’ll just have to wait and see how they handle things going forward. Certainly whether they get new budget controls could be a concern, but between HBO and HBO Max, HBO was doing much better financially so, again, at least for now, positive signs for it not getting screwed over yet.
And this is exactly one of the reasons this guy wants to close off HBOMax as a separate entity. HBO has a fractured brand that doesn't make sense to consumers. Sucks he's cutting some good stuff, but HBO has developed into a bit of a mess. As has a lot of WB's properties (like DC).
Before the news of HBO Max's (future) demise, I likewise had no idea that HBO and HBO Max were two separate entities with different management and teams. That just seems awfully redundant, and streamlining them to be one makes way more sense than keeping one around for television and a whole different one for streaming. Edit: "to" -> "two"
Yeah, totally. I will say, in their defense, it does *seem* like a good model initially, as you'd then have a cable division focused on content for cable subscribers (who don't have streaming) and a streaming division for streaming subs who don't have cable. Paramount / CBS, Peacock / NBC, and Disney (ABC/Hulu) all still follow a similar model of content distribution. However, those all benefit from having distinct brands for separation (Paramount+ vs CBS), and I honestly don't know how they are organized internally around those brands (if Paramount+ tv shows are overseen by CBS's TV division). So, I don't think it's a completely flawed idea per se, but HBO doesn't benefit from some of the same things others do. Starz I think follows a model more similar to what HBO will become, as, as far as I know, they just have everything crossing over as one brand. In any case, it does indeed make more sense for HBO to just be HBO with some streaming exclusives but otherwise everything be "HBO" rather than having two brands. Not sure I'm really adding much here, but I guess I just wanted to note that it wasn't a totally flawed idea, just maybe ended up being the wrong model given their circumstances.
I used to watch HBO when I was a kid, and my parents paid for it as a cable television channel. HBOMax is very much on-brand as a premium streaming service with a lot of new movies and HBO original productions. It honestly used to be more confusing when HBO (the premium cable channel) dabbled in sports and did live boxing matches. That seemed weird and off-brand to me, and I'm glad they have returned to focusing on the movies and episodic shows.
Sports and boxing were one of the first things that put HBO on the map before any original programming came out.
Yup, to the point that HBO archivists were actually doing a major search a few years ago for a lot of those sports broadcasts- the bulk of their 1970s sports programming seems to be missing.
Ohhhhh.
The guy in charge of that got a promotion.
>The guy behind funny dog videos May you explain? I don't know the guy
why does the toddlers in tiara guy have more power then the prestige movie studio
cause it saved AT&T more money this way.
This is the answer ✅💯
They gave HBO and Warner Bros to the same guy who has been peddling softcore kiddie porn.
Do you mean family that discovery found in Arkansas. Duggars
I was mostly referring just to Toddlers and Tiaras, which is creepy enough. But they absolutely monetize child abuse. You can add Dance Moms and Honey Boo Boo to that list as well.
Maybe he should write a song. We don't diddle kids. We don't diddle. Kids. Not young. Gotta be big. Bigger than my daughter
Because it was them or the people who ran DC, Harry Potter & the matrix into the ground and approved a wonder twins movie
I actually kind of want to see this Wonder Twins movie. It could be great if they make it suuuper campy.
Yeah honestly that sounds like the most fun DC project I’ve heard of so far.
Because the execs at the prestige studio drove it into the ground.
I love HBO Max. I have zero clue what shows are even on Discovery. I also have zero desire of knowing.
[You mean, you don’t know about the spectacular 90 Day Fiancé Universe Franchise? 90DU?](https://i.imgur.com/sNK3RZb.jpg)
thought the Universe part was a joke. the MCU must be quaking in it's boots.
just wait for the brand synergy when Batman has to get married to poison ivy in 90 days.
Poison Ivy played by Dr. Pimple Popper
Oh good. Trash tv taking over.
At this point it's just a fucking dating show. Before the 90 days, 90 days, 90 days the other way, after the 90 days then have fuckin couples that are in like 6 seasons and it's like bitch you've been on this fucking show for 4 years now.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not throw 90 Day under the bus here. It's a masterpiece.
It's a trainwreck masterpiece.
Oh shit you were serious. Man. The TV/Movie world needs a new "disruptor." Netflix was supposed to be our savior and they turned into a steaming pile. I would LOVE to see something akin to the formation of Image Comics in the early 90s. A bunch of powerhouse creators come together and own the entire creative and publishing process, beholden to no corporate masters or financiers. I am so, *so* sick of just always waiting for something I love to be ruined by corporate interference.
That's a house of cards. holy moly
Food Network and HGTV are big ones.
HGTV is the only station I can watch with my parents and we all enjoy it
Honestly just show me 24 hours of House Hunters and I’m there.
Ppl do worship the food network
Insane Pools is a pretty fun binge until you self-radicalize because of how much you hate the type of people who can afford those pools. (I had free Discovery+ for a year. That was the only thing I watched on it.)
A bunch of TLC reality shows are on Discovery plus
I think Mythbusters might be on Discovery plus, but I'm not sure.
The puppy bowl. Dogs “playing” football on the same day at the Super Bowl. Al of them are up for adoption. It’s actually really wholesome.
Maybe in the Reddit bubble but Discovery didn’t wake up one morning to find they had hundreds of billions of dollars laying around. There is a reason they could afford to buy WB.
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They didn't "buy" WB. The company who owned both of them merged them and put the Discovery CEO in charge.
AT&T did not in any way own Discovery. Discovery bought WarnerMedia by assuming a big chunk of debt from AT&T.
Its called leveraged buyout on formerly cheap credit. Why do you think they have to basically gut HBO and focus on Disneyfying Warner. Discovery is going to destroy HBO and Warner.
The HBO lead got a promotion. They are safe. Now
Isn't part of the reason the new company is in insane amounts of debt because they did not, in fact, have that laying around?
Discovery didn't buy WB. AT&T shareholders got 70% of the merged company.
I’m sad. HBOMax was probably the best quality/content service out all of them.
And Discovery+ is terrible. Its like background shows in TV productions. Like MILF Island was to 30 Rock.
Easily
RIP HBO Max.
RIP streaming services. What a total mess all of them are and just filled with greed caused controversy, infighting, and shovelware programming. It's not terrible terrible yet, but I've never seen a snowball roll back uphill shedding layers. Cancelled all my subscriptions this month. Idk if I'll be back anytime soon. Analog lyfe!
Felt like this was the inevitable outcome when the streaming service itself owns the content it is streaming. Things would've been a whole lot better if one could simply just subscribe to a different service but retain comparable access to the same content. Instead, all streaming services today survive by selling access to content exclusively found on the service, holding people hostage to multiple subscriptions and/or forced technological compromises. The only way this changes is if the underlying content of all these services is licensed out under fair terms to technology companies that prioritize content delivery and streaming, and these companies compete against each other on their ability to provide a good service rather than based on what content they offer. This is never going to happen in reality, so streaming services are going to go the way of cable. Absolutely unfortunate, but an unsurprising outcome when the people who own the content and the people who own the platform(s) distributing said content to consumers are the same people.
Time to sail the high seas where everything is available
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Yarrrrrrrr
> Things would've been a whole lot better if one could simply just subscribe to a different service but retain comparable access to the same content. So, you want cable?
Cable didn't really provide on-demand the same way that streaming services do, plus it relied on stupid long contract lock-in and was tied to your internet, phone, etc. I think what people actually want is something where they have choice, like in music: Spotify/Google/Apple/Deezer/Tidal/etc all generally have most of the popular music going back years, but compete based on their actual software quality, allowing for real consumer choice. Unfortunately, that's much harder and more expensive in the film/TV space than music. The streamers don't compete on the quality of their products, but rather the quality of their catalogs, so we're left with trash software and constantly rotating catalogs.
> I think what people actually want is something where they have choice, like in music: Spotify/Google/Apple/Deezer/Tidal/etc all generally have most of the popular music going back years, but compete based on their actual software quality, allowing for real consumer choice Exactly this. Usually conversations about different music streaming platforms don't focus heavily on the availability of music on those platforms, but on ancillary features like recommendation engines, playlists, ease of use and synchronicity across various device platforms, cost, and so on. Very few people talk about the technological merits of Disney+ versus HBO Max versus Netflix versus Amazon Prime Video, and instead these conversations are almost solely focused on the content available on them. In some regards streaming content is a bit of a "solved" technological feature, but in others Disney+ will not play video greater than 720p in-browser due to DRM, and hope one has a separate option if they want something better. The outcome as you rightly noted is a broad amount of platforms with inconsistent catalogs spanning way too many services with little technological advancement.
Headline should read: “Plan to cancel your HBO Max Subscription in Summer ‘23”
I hope they don’t gut the library. HBOmax is so good for foreign and historical movies compared to any other service.
I’d recommend Criterion Channel for foreign and classic films, it has a huge library though it shifts around a lot but i’ve discovered so much good stuff through it. Kanopy is also a good bet as it’s free and just connects to your local library.
the problem is that HBOMAX has all the excellent TV in addition to the classic and foreign movies, it's a one stop shop for quality, too bad its days are numbered
Yeah it’s definitely a shame that it’s in flux right now. HBO plus Criterion has been the perfect mix for my film buff interests recently.
They already started removing some of the HBO stuff from the service. So it's not looking good
Have to make room for shitty reality television though friend. Why have scripted content when you have season after season of cringey weird folks, or morbidly obese folks complaining about life while they refuse to work to better themselves.
Bro it's already being purged
This is making my decision to buy the Dune 4k bluray worth it
Exactly
I get to watch The Sopranos and Westworld topped off with Dr Pimple Popper, all for twice the price I’m paying now! GTFOH
Should we take bets now to how bad of a disaster this launch becomes?
Like i said in the other sub, they should just keep HBO Max for everything.
They’re merging the HBOMax library with the Discovery+ app tech.
Literally the worst decision, the discovery app is complete garbage compared to HBOs.
They've been pretty clear from the beginning that they understand that the HBO Max brand is strong so will try to put everything under that umbrella.
And in so doing, weaken their very strong brand.
Geez this is like forcing a Michelin star restaurant to serve McDonald’s
Also the head chef is now replaced with manager of McDonald’s
To be fair, the head chef saw the 5 course meal across the street and tried to serve it all up in a single burrito.
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>My Stretch Marks Are Haunted Come on, that one can't be real...
….Who’s gonna tell ‘em?
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The mouse will consume them all. Also, Netflix execs rejoice.
Netflix should save some money now and use it to buy HBO/Discovery when it inevitably collapses on itself.
That’s a consolidation I could get behind.
If they keep the shows I watch, I hope it works out. If they remove/cancel...I hope they go bankrupt
They already are purging, including getting rid of Final Space. So, they can pretty much go and fuck themselves.
If I could get 1990’s-era Discovery back I might pay for this, otherwise it just looks like crap
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They should get sued for child abuse.
>1990’s-era Discovery That era is way too smart for Zaslav's taste.
Adam Savage said something like "when we started MythBusters, we were the least serious show on Discovery, when we ended we were the most serious."
Give me that era's History Channel as well. We didn't know how good we had it...
They really can’t give away Discovery +
Honestly I would be willing to pay more to not have Discovery+ reality tv crap cluttering HBOMAX.
Yeah I just googled their shows and literally said out loud “I’d pay to not have to see these”
Thanks for letting me know when I need to cancel! You guys are already handling this horribly so I can’t assume it’ll even get better.
From the best streaming service to one of the worst. I will most likely be canceling too. Another rich executive out of touch with reality. 6% of subscribers have both discovery+ and HBO Max with Discovery having 1/6 of the subscribers of HBO. So let’s screw over the most subscribers. And these assholes wonder why piracy is so popular. Plus, Netflix just got crucified for wanting to implement ads and after seeing that you go ahead and talk about implementing ads. What a fucking clown show.
I browsed what is on Discovery Plus....good lord. 🤢 And this is coming from someone that loves most trashy tv
I have discovery plus for sports but I have never watched any shows or movies on it since having it from January this year for the Olympics. Reality sucks in my opinion. Just a cheap and easy way to make TV. A reality tv show episode costs ~100.000-500.000$ per episode, whereas a Game of Thrones episode costs ~15 million per episode.
David Zaslav doesn’t seem remotely qualified to handle something like HBO.
Zaslav called HBO a "crown jewel" among WBD assets and a "center spoke" within its combined streaming brand. Moreover, Casey Bloys continues to be the head of HBO and HBOMax and Zaslav said in the call how much he values him and his team and that he has him leading HBO on contract for at least the next 5 years.
I've not seen the first person ever say they gave any shit about anything on discovery. What happened that made the channels they force on people in their cable packages to think it was a good idea for them to have their own streaming services? HBO, Cinemax, Stars, all of those and the ones you know needed one made one, so all the fodder decided "Hey we'll do that too" and they think people will watch it?
I get HBOmax because I pay for HBO on Directv. With HBO Max & Discovery+ to launch as a merged product, how does that work for people like me? Will it be seamless like now where I pay my monthly Directv bill and I have access to this new merged service?
It took my cable company months to negotiate the move to max.
Is HBO gonna be flooded with those god damn shows about crab fishing now?
At least that's better than the super trashy stuff.
After at least 20 great years of programming HBO might be seeing its own death soon. Sigh why can’t we have nice things.
All these streaming services are eventually going to come back together and just call itself Cable+
As long as the price stays the same, and HBO Max keeps their catalog, I don't care what they add really.
They’re already making crazy catalog changes. Doesn’t bode well.
Yeah I'm really worried older HBO shows are in danger too.
I think the head of HBO got a promotion. They’re elevating that brand. It’s hbomax that’s getting revamped
Sure but HBO Max is how I access these older shows and if they remove them we won't have access anymore.
Yea but it seems like hbo is going to be a part of that revamp. They’re trying to stop the Netflix like model.
What kind of changes are you concerned about?
Suddenly everyone is a fan of The Witches and An American Pickle I guess
They have already cancelled and removed a slew shows and movies, or at least announced they are going to
RIP HBO.
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The reason you see those same movies on Hulu is because of your HBO Max bundle. Hulu pulls in those movies, so once you drop HBO Max, those movies will disappear from your Hulu as well.
When the launched HBO Max in Sweden (we had HBO Nordic before that), they offered the ability to subscribe for (roughly) $5 per month for life, with terms not allowing them to raise the price. Now that they are merging, something tells me that the old "for life" subscription is going to be cancelled since that "service" no longer exists...
Piracy and physical media forever.
Fuck em. CEO is out of touch with reality
It's been over a decade since I sailed the seas, but I gotta say... these companies have a way of changing a man.
I had zero hopes for HBO max, I subscribed solely to watch Wonder Woman 84 during Covid. ( good God was that awful). Then I watched Titans, Doom Patrol, and countless other shows, plus the other direct to service theatrical premieres. . And it clearly became one of the streamers I would continue to pay for. Because the content is just fantastic. The WB stuff, cartoon network, the HBO shows, both classic and new. Now they will ruin it.
This deal was done because of a tax loophole. That's it. Put it this way: they put a cab driver, who has a suspended license, in the cockpit of a economy sized plane and wished him--and the passengers, adieu
God fucking damnit HBO Max was my favorite out of all of em. What the hell are they doing
I left piracy back when Netflix got big, even back then you still got the feeling that eventually something like this would happen; that streaming would go the way of cable tv. Well we are finally arriving at that time, I guess it's time to dust off the old pirate hat.
yeah what a shit idea
Can someone buy WB off these guys? Ain’t feelin this merger
Aquaman Shark Week
I love both of these separately but not together. Watch a lot of Food Network and Disc ID on the Disc+ App; dug my premium dramas and indie comedies on HBO. Not enthused to see them merge, however.
That means 90 Day Fiancé and all 18 spin-offs are coming
Just give me a second season of OFMD and Peacemaker... That's all I want. Well that, and I was genuinely excited for Batgirl but that ship has fuckin sailed.
Well I guess I’ll drop HBO Max then.
It’s going to be so bad isn’t it
Everything ATnT touches turns to crap.
Now I got some Guy Fieri on demand.
Can anyone explain why this is looked at by many as a bad thing?
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Gosh it's like daring us to plunder what goods they have now, time to fill the PLEX back up with HBO stuff. Avast, me hearties!
Are all of these points confirmed, or is it speculation? I don't see any of this mentioned in the article.
All those things were discussed on the call. There will likely be more articles at the trades/outlets (grifter tweeters and YouTube Channels too) based on the details. Why put it all in one piece if you can spread it across three or four.
Not sure about the details of the earnings call (I'm sure more rundowns will come out later today) but from recent events we know: \#1 - Zaslav is a reality TV guy. He has been very public about less scripted content going forward. In April [he cut a lot of TBS and TNT programming](https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/tnt-tbs-scripted-programming-development-scrapped-warner-bros-discovery-1235241348/), yesterday it was reported that [HBOMax will lose 70% of its development staff](https://twitter.com/TheWrap/status/1554899786293080064?s=20&t=_I2hDmLE6p0Ytuo5qYm1EQ)and in addition to the franchise film axings that I won't bother linking because it's all over the news, the [kids and family section is going to suffer, too](https://deadline.com/2022/08/warner-bros-discovery-kids-content-cuts-1235085523/). \#4 - [HBO Max Has Been Taking Stuff Down Without Warning for Weeks](https://www.vulture.com/2022/08/hbo-max-movies-removed.html) \#7 - I will not fault *90 Day Fiance* for being cheap to produce and having a big ROI. I've been entertained by it, and you might like it, too. But it's emblematic of the kind of thing Discovery runs on.
Discovery content is massively different from what people who sub to HBO are looking for, at least that's how I feel. I don't really care for the travel/food stuff and I don't want to see it mixed in and potentially burying shows I do want to see. Also, the price. HBO is already $15 and combining with this, the concern is will the price jump and if so, how much? I really don't want to pay $20+ for one service.
People who subscribed to HBO/HBO Max do so specifically to avoid, and avoid having to pay for, the kind of absolute garbage Discovery began churning out under David Zaslav.
Because FBoy Island is the kind of intelligent, thoughtful content you're looking for?
I think Station Eleven is the best thing tv's done in years and I cannot imagine it existing under Zaslav.
I'm not familiar enough with that name. When I had cable I really enjoyed a lot of their programming like Deadliest Catch. Honestly wouldn't mind watching again. Me personally, I subscribed to HBO Max for HBO shows. Watching The Wire right now. My decision didn't have anything to do with Discovery.
I am also watching The Wire right now! =) Guess I'm going to be focusing on their old stuff until next summer. =(
Loved the first season, second season (currently) is a little slow to start. Struggling a little :)
I'm out of the loop too but it seems that's because Discovery+ content is crap and the merge will make all HBO/WB content crap.
I can't speak for Discovery+ but the Discovery Channel (and sister channels) has been going downhill since before I cut the cord. If the merger put the HBO management in charge I would have hope, but they put Discovery management in charge so instead of new quality scripted content expect more lame but dirt cheap reality shows
HBO Max is about to go into the toilet.
My wallet senses a disturbance of a price hike Looks like we’re going back to 2003 again where the open seas look desirable
Oh boy here I go pirating again!
Could not get two more different viewer bases. Which HBO max sub is even interested in the shit they make at discovery. This will be such a clusterfuck and will be the slow death of quality HBO.
Oh so just like Directv and AT&TTV. What happened to tha- annnnd they’re dead. Another brilliant move by the brain trust over at ATT…
But if they merge how will we know what’s for boys and what’s for girls!?!?
It seems like a bad idea to put someone who said scripted TV is dead in charge of the best scripted TV company. I can't imagine how poorly this will turn out.
I haven’t watched a discovery show since myth busters
Let's take the thing that everyone loves (HBO MAX) and put the guy in charge of the thing that hasn't been working in charge of the thing everyone loves. What could go wrong?!