Move over Mark Twain, this time it’s HBO Max whose death may have been greatly exaggerated – according to the head of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav.
Many believed that Netflix would most likely kill off the rival streaming service once its recently announced acquisition of WBD was approved by regulators, with fears that it could significantly increase the price of its platform’s monthly subscription thanks to the wave of new content for which it just paid a very significant amount of money.
Now, according to a recording of a WBD all-hands meeting obtained by Business Insider, Zaslav assured staff that “HBO Max will stay.” Adding that “For people who just want HBO Max, they will be able to get it.”
That’s been one of the biggest fears of Netflix and HBO Max subscribers who only use one of the two services: If they merge, they’ll be forced to pay extra for an expanded content catalog filled with things they never wanted. It looks like that won’t be the case, based on Zaslav’s comments.
That said, I would take his words with a pinch of salt, because in about 12 to 18 months (the estimated timeline for the acquisition assuming things go smoothly, although recent comments from US President Trump suggest things could be at least a little bumpy) David Zaslav will no longer be the one making business decisions for HBO Max.
So, to a certain extent, he can promise whatever he wants – because he is not the one who will have to keep his promises.
This idea of maintaining the distribution of services is, however, logical. This could help allay fears about Netflix’s dominance in the video-on-demand market if HBO Max were dissolved. Additionally, combining the services would require a significant price increase, which might be more than some customers can bear.
By keeping things separate, Netflix could simply offer a bundle that gives you both services at a cheaper rate than paying for each separately, while still keeping the platforms somewhat separate.
Likewise, why wouldn’t Netflix want to make its platform even more essential to our entertainment needs than it is today? As with many things in this deal, we’ll have to wait and see what happens – Paramount also announced a hostile takeover bid today before Netflix can pick up WBD, so forget trying to figure out what might happen in a year or so, we don’t know what might happen tomorrow.
However, whatever the twist or turn, we will keep you updated.
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