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HBO Max and Paramount+ will be merged into one service once Paramount has completed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, it has emerged.
The two companies reached agreement last week on a deal that will see the likes of Paramount+, CBS and MTV join forces with HBO, CNN, Discovery and TNT Sports.
Speaking to investors on Monday, Paramount chief executive David Ellison confirmed the future merger of the two companies’ major streamers while also affirming that he wants HBO to “operate with independence”.
“As we said, we do plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers,” he said. “We think that really positions us to compete with the leaders in the space.
“At Paramount, by the middle of this year, we’ll have completed the consolidation of our three services under one unified stack, and you can see us taking a similar approach to this platform going forward. And we think the combined offering, and given the amount of content and what we can do from the tech side, really will put us in a position to be able to compete with the most scaled players in DTC.”
Speaking about HBO, he added: “We do plan for that to be able to operate with independence, so that HBO can, candidly, do what it does incredibly well. Our viewpoint is HBO should stay HBO. They built a phenomenal brand.
“They are a leader in the space, and we just want them to continue doing more of it. But by bringing the platforms together, all of our content will be able to reach even a broader audience than we can do standalone.”
In the UK and Ireland, HBO Max is due to launch later this month, with discovery+ continuing as a separate service.
News on whether HBO Max, Paramount+ and discovery+ will all eventually merge into one in the UK and Ireland has yet to be revealed.
