HBO max changing to MAX… and it’ll be a hard fall for WBD

I’m sure other got the email:

“Introducing Max,

We’ve been dying to tell you the good news! You’re getting everything you love to watch on HBO Max, plus the best in true crime, reality, food, and home — all for the same price you pay today. Pretty great, right?

Mark your calendar. You’ll have access to Max as soon as it arrives on May 23.”

My take :

One of Zeslavs (and bob iger) complain is how expensive content has become. And that there’s too much good stuff in these service.

I follow this a lot and worked in one of these big companies.

Imo at the end of the day these platforms will end up being and doing the “TV thing” of having a few prime time shows so people tune in… in streaming well, you can see it taking form: Disney has mandalorian, hbomax has succession and paramount dives into Star Trek and other famous franchises to cut through the noise.

The issue now is how to get people to not expect hbo max to not have every single amazing title on the service and therefore be able to sell these licenses to other networks and streaming companies. Create scarcity to push up licensing prices but without pushing users to bittorrent.

Which is basically like taking away peoples beer at a bar during last call.

The plan I’m seeing is putting some of the cheaper content from discovery (reality tv / docuseries etc) so there is more “filler”. And the good shows will be once again sold and resold to several other companies Which makes good money.

Anyways, WBD will probably hit a very sharp downturn and later rise as the plan pays off. And maybe they can pay some of that debt.

The other thing I’m predicting is wb selling off some big channel or IP to help w the debt. Maybe the cnn+ fiasco is a precursor. (There’s office/building moments as well). If that happens the that’ll be a good catalyst.

Well, just a random post that’s not a news article