Warner Bros. Discovery, with Zaslav at its helm, has spent the last few years publicly gutting the streaming service, which it helpfully refers to as “de-prioritizing other genres that drive less engagement or acquisition” as it deletes bits of content. This has included the high-profile sidelining of complete film projects such as Batgirl, or the recently saved and acquired Coyote vs. Acme, in the name of pursuing tax write-downs rather than letting the work of various industry creatives ever see the light of day. The company statement implies that the newly “HBO”-ified Max will be focusing on quality rather than quantity in its offerings: “This evolution has also been influenced by changing consumer needs, and the fact that no consumer today is saying they want more content, but most consumers are saying they want better content. With other services filling the more basic needs with volume, WBD has clearly distinguished itself through its quality and distinct stories, and no brand has done that better and more consistently over 50+ years than HBO.”
They even included a quote from grim reaper Zaslav himself: “The powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming. Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead.”
Although we agree that it is certainly a “bold” decision for the company to return its streaming service to the exact same title they stripped from it two years ago, we have a hunch that the “consumer data and insights” they cite in making this latest HBO Max name change probably would have indicated all along that there was never anything wrong with the name in the first place. Alas, that kind of honesty is typically beyond the purview of a press release to deliver. You’ll have to settle for the company’s halfway decent Friends meme instead. No specific date has been set for the name change, but we look forward to finding “Max”-branded merchandise in second-hand stores for decades to come.
