You’d be hard-pressed to find a CEO in the film and TV industry to have such an immediate impact as David Zaslav over at Warner Bros. Discovery. We saw a huge change happen when Zaslav took over WBD last year, canceling “Batgirl” (and various other projects), hiring James Gunn/Peter Safran to take over DC Studios and reboot everything, and combining HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming services into Max. All of this is in an attempt to steer the WBD ship into profitability. Well, as someone who isn’t afraid to rock the boat in the name of making some extra money, it appears the next step in the Zaslav plan is to license out HBO content to one of WBD’s biggest rivals—Netflix.
According to Deadline, Warner Bros. Discovery is in the middle of negotiations with Netflix about licensing out older HBO content to the rival streamer. As of now, it’s unclear just how many HBO shows Netflix would gain in the agreement, but the report claims that Issa Rae’s “Insecure” would likely be the first one to make the jump.
Licensing content isn’t a revolutionary, unheard-of situation for studios, and Netflix has worked with Warner Bros. quite a bit in the past, especially on the TV side of things. However, for a long time, it has been thought that WBD considered HBO content the golden goose for its scripted streaming exclusives. I mean, the studio called its first streaming service HBO Max because the “HBO” part of that name meant so much. But now, it appears that WBD is ready to split custody of its premier HBO content if it means that the studio can make some extra money.
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It must be said that this isn’t the first time WBD has licensed out HBO content. Part of Zaslav’s extensive cost-cutting/milking content for all its worth moves was to license out “Westworld,” “The Nevers,” and “Raised By Wolves” to ad-driven streaming services in the hope to make more money off of these series. But at that time, while shocking, it was clear that these series were the lower tier HBO stuff because they were canceled and not as beloved as series such as “Insecure.” Plus, the ad-driven streaming services are not nearly as popular as Netflix, which is without a doubt, the biggest streaming rival to WBD right now.
Of course, Netflix is the big winner here. Gaining HBO content is huge for the streaming service, as it begins to blur the lines of exclusivity over at its rival, the WBD-run Max streaming service. Why would Netflix customers have to choose to support both Max and Netflix when they can get Max content in both places?
Ultimately, it’ll be interesting to see what HBO shows make the leap. Will WBD license something like “The Sopranos?” Perhaps “The Wire?” Those are both legendary series that ended their respective runs years ago. Or is WBD only interested in giving Netflix the HBO series that aren’t as popular? We’ll likely find out sooner than later.
