HBO Max and Discovery+ to Merge Into One Streaming Service
- The HBO Max and Discovery+ platforms will soon merge into one streaming service.
- Parent companies WarnerMedia and Discovery are currently deciding on the best way to unify them.
- Before the merger happens, it was confirmed that they will run as a bundle for a while.
After Discovery and AT&T’s WarnerMedia close their merger next month, the new Warner Bros. Discovery company plans to bundle the two standalone platforms for a while before they integrate HBO Max and Discovery+ into one service. In what is the first time the company has revealed its postmerger plans for the two streamers, it was confirmed that the first step towards the integration will be some sort of bundling while the new company reasons out the best way to merge them.
Gunnar Wiedenfels, Discovery CFO (who will retain his title when Warner Bros. Discovery is formed), confirmed the news at the Deutsche Bank 30th Annual Media, Internet & Telecom Conference. "That’s nothing that’s going to happen in weeks — hopefully not in years, but in several months — and we will start working on an interim solution in the meantime. So right out of the gate, we’re working on getting the bundling approach ready, maybe a single sign-on, maybe ingesting content into the other product, etc., so that we can start to get some benefits early on. But the main thrust is going to be harmonizing the technology platform," Wiedenfels said.
Currently, Discovery+ costs $4.99 per month with ads or $6.99 per month ad-free. A subscription to HBO Max costs $9.99 per month with ads or $14.99 a month without ads. Wiedenfels did not reveal how much a subscription to the combined streaming service would cost. However, he did say that there will be both ad-free and ad-lite products, so this means we could see a limited-ads plan and a no-ads plan just like we did with the previous tiers of these platforms.
The CFO also said that HBO Max and Discovery+ combined would reach across all age and sex demographics. The Discovery-WarnerMedia merger is estimated to be worth $43 billion and is slated to close early in the second quarter of this year, in late April.
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