The HBO Max and Discovery breakup was inevitable

Remember the plan for HBO Max and Discovery to mix their content together into an all-new streaming called “Max”? Well, forget all that. 

Not even a month after declaring that Max would soon be HBO Max again, parent company Warner Bros. Discovery has announced what pretty much everyone in the industry could see coming: a breakup. 

Specifically, Warner Bros. Discovery will split in two, with one company taking on HBO Max along with Warner Bros.’s film and TV studios, while the other company will take the (declining) cable assets, including CNN, TBS, and TNT, plus sports, the Discovery linear channels, and Discovery+. 

The announcement of the split leaves many questions unanswered for streamers. What happens to Discovery content on HBO Max? What about Bleacher Report, the bundle of live sports that’s moving to the second “global networks” business? Will there be pricing changes? (Are there stars in the sky?) And when is all this going to happen? 

Many of the answers will have to wait, as the Warner Bros. Discovery split likely won’t be finalized until the middle of next year. That said, we should expect the “Max” streaming service of today to look very different from the “HBO Max” of 2026. 

Namely, Max—er, HBO Max—is pivoting away from the whole “something for everybody” strategy that drove the decision to merge HBO Max and Discovery+ in the first place.  

In announcing today’s decision to shareholders, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav put it plainly. “We put HBO back in [to HBO Max] for a reason. People see us as the highest quality streaming service out there,” Zaslav said (according to The Hollywood Reporter), while promising to double down on “all the HBO content” as well as the biggest Warner Bros. movie and TV properties. 

For HBO Max, that means a move away from children’s programming, reality shows, and other content that didn’t bear the traditional HBO moniker—in short, all the stuff that’s going to the other company. Two separate companies with separate missions and content make for an easier story to tell customers as well as investors—or at least, so goes the current thinking. 

And why go to all the trouble in the first place? It’s all part of the (maddening) cycle of business, from conglomeration to divestiture and back again. Who doesn’t love a merry-go-round?