After a few days of mass uncertainty, with folks on social media wondering what is going on at one of the biggest studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. Discovery has shed some light on the company’s future. And the least surprising, yet most interesting bit of news revealed in yesterday’s investors’ call, is the long-awaited merger between HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming services into a single yet-to-be-named app. However, CEO David Zaslav, speaking about the company’s streaming future, referred to the streaming side as “HBO Discovery” multiple times during the earnings call. So, maybe that will be the final title of the service.
This none-too-surprising streaming merger news comes on the heels of some odd behavior from WBD this week, the studio canceling “Batgirl” and “Scoob! Holiday Haunt,” both of which were in post-production and carried budgets around $90 million and $40 million each. In addition to major canceled films, there have been mysterious departures of “exclusive” HBO Max content such as films like “An American Pickle” and “Superintelligence,” as well as HBO original series such as “Vinyl” and “Mrs. Fletcher.” These decisions were reportedly all part of a tax write-off plan where WBD would save money by counting these as “losses” against the previous Warner Bros. regime.
Warner Bros. Discovery are gunning to bring ad-supportive versions of the app too, with Ad-Lite, a free version that will feature advertisements for those that might see the subscription price a bit too much. It’s possible this could help coax online audiences to stream via Ad-Lite instead of piracy options. The new service will launch next summer in the United States with subsequent international roll-outs in Latin America, European, Asia, and other markets afterward. How this will affect previous media deals with Canada’s Crave and the United Kingdom’s Sky for HBO Max originals, remains to be seen.
One of the more oddball moments during the presentation, since mercilessly ridiculed online, and especially on Twitter, was HBO Max being labeled as “male skew” while Discovery+ was labeled as “female skew,” breaking down the two services by gender. It all certainly comes off a bit tone-deaf to the audience that is supporting these apps.
So, what you’re left with is a new streaming service, HBO Discovery, let’s call it for now, which is clearly going to take the future of WBD on a new path. A path that seemingly includes fewer scripted series and more emphasis on non-scripted, reality-based content (because that content is cheaper to produce and thus the business yield for the company is higher). This is seemingly spearheaded by Zaslav, who comes from Discovery, evidently loves reality for this very reason, and is trying to cut costs while taking over Warner Bros. And considering his past as one of the guys on the forefront of non-scripted television (just look at the Discovery family of networks, for example), this new change isn’t all that surprising. On another notable scale, we’ve seen this already happen, too, as TBS (a WB network) has been forced to ditch all of its scripted series recently in favor of sticking to non-scripted content.
That doesn’t mean the HBO part of HBO Max is dead. In fact, we really don’t know what it means at all yet. But it’s very possible that scripted content on the new streaming service will be rarer and an emphasis will be placed on reality and non-scripted content.
The full fallout of this decision is unknown, but it could likely be felt for years, as we see the landscape of streaming change over time. Maybe this is a decision that saves WBD from years of overspending and trying to catch up with the likes of Disney, Netflix, Amazon, and Apple? Maybe this means this new combined service will be a much stronger option because of that? We shall see.