Launching a streaming service isn’t easy.
Disney was the first major broadcast network to launch its Netflix challenger, Disney+, in November 2019.
Luckily for Disney, and unluckily for the rest of the world, a global pandemic that forced everyone to stay indoors was just around the corner, helping fuel exponential growth for the platform.
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Disney+ garnered 100 million subscribers by March 2021. But after peaking at about 164.2 million in October 2022, it experienced its first decline ever. Over the next few months, Disney+ churned nearly 20 million subscribers, bottoming out at 146.1 million in July 2023, according to data from BackLink.
Comcast launched Peacock, its own streaming service, in July 2020. Much like Disney+, Peacock relied on bundles and deals and a cheap starting price to attract subs. But Peacock’s growth wasn’t as meteoric as that of Disney+.
By August 2021, it had 26 million signups, but just four million of those were converted into subscribers. Since then Peacock has also grown exponentially. It now has 41 million subscribers.
But while it has grown in popularity, it is still not profitable. Peacock generated $1.2 billion in revenue for Comcast in the quarter, a 16% increase. Still, it lost $215 million in the period, down from $639 million the year before.
Warner Bros. Discovery WBD launched HBO Max in May 2020. On Wednesday, nearly five years later, the company announced it was returning to its roots.
Max will be a thing of the past.
Image source: Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Max is changing its name, again
HBO Max launched long before Warner Bros. merged with Discovery Inc. in April 2022.
After the merger, Warner and Discovery figured the best way to integrate their two brands was to drop the iconic HBO moniker and just go with the name Max for their streaming service.
The change became official on May 23. Two years later, we will officially be back to calling it HBO Max, starting this summer.
The company made the announcement at the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront event at Madison Square Garden in New York.
It said that its streaming business, which has been profitable since 2023, has been able to turn around its profitability by $3 billion in just two years.
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The platform added 22 million subscribers over the past year, raising its count to 150 million.
No matter what the name, CEO David Zaslav says viewers can expect the type of quality programming from the network known for hit TV shows like “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” in the past and “Succession” and “The Last of Us” more recently.
“The powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming. Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead,“ Zaslav said.
While Warner is celebrating the return of HBO, most netizens online rolled their eyes at the about-face.
Viewers react to HBO Max name change
Seeing a lineup of the different logos and name changes HBO Max has gone through over the years seemed to drive home the apparent randomness of branding efforts.
X user TrungTPhan said the rebranding “caps off probably the funniest series of inexplicable logo changes in corporate history.”
And of course, HBO Max and its social team got in on the fun.
On its official X page, HBO posted a still photo of one of Alexa Demie’s most memorable moments as character Maddy Perez on the network’s edgy teen drama “Euphoria.” In the scene, she famously said, “B–ch, you better be joking.” HBO Max then captioned the meme, “What she said.”
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