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Discovery Plus is migrating to the same technology used by Max, offering better performance across its apps and videos. Image: Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images The Discovery Plus app is getting a much-needed upgrade. On Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it’s finally migrating the service to the same technology used by its flagship streaming service Max, which should offer improved app and video performance. The company says Discovery Plus will have a more “refined” homepage and navigation, along with better content recommendations. The video player will also now allow you to switch between episodes and content recommendations. I’m just hoping the update will make it easier to scrub through episodes, as the video player is currently very laggy. Image: Discovery Plus Some other improvements include the ability to sign into the app using a QR code, as well as a way to share show recommendations through text or social media on mobile. The update is rolling out now to most devices in the US and Canada, but Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson Jaclyn Mandelbaum said, “Updates may take a few days to roll out across platforms.” Even after the launch of Max, which folds in a lot of Discovery Plus content like 90 Day Fiancé, Naked and Afraid, and Property Brothers, the standalone app has largely lagged behind. This update could at least help justify the $1 price hike Discovery Plus rolled out earlier this year, bringing the ad-supported plan to $5.99 / month and the ad-free plan to $9.99 / month. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of February): 874 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Both the ad-free and ad-supported plans are going up by $1. Photo Illustration by Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images Discovery Plus is going up in price, with its ad-supported plan going from $4.99 to $5.99 per month, and its ad-free plan increasing from $8.99 to $9.99 per month. The price hike will go into effect immediately for new subscribers, while existing subscribers will see the change during their next billing cycle or after February 7th. Discovery Plus raised the price of its ad-free plan for the first time in October 2023. Following the launch of Max, Discovery Plus remained a standalone subscription despite most of its content appearing in Warner Bros. Discovery’s flagship streaming service. Discovery Plus has a mix of shows — ranging from ultra binge-worthy to ultra cringe-worthy — from channels like HGTV, TLC, the Discovery Channel, Investigation Discovery, Magnolia Network, and others. Streaming service price hikes have become frustratingly common over the past few years, with Max, Paramount Plus, and Peacock all raising their prices in 2024, while Amazon Prime Video introduced ads. Max and Disney Plus are also following Netflix’s initiative to crack down on password sharing. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery announced plans to merge its HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming services. Now, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, those plans have changed, and both services will remain separate, at least for now. What happened? According to the article, which uses unnamed sources, the company felt that current Discovery+ subscribers, who pay $4.99 a month for the service with ads and $6.99 a month without ads, would obviously not like it if they had to pay a lot more money per month if it merged with HBO Max. Warner Bros. Discovery has already been making preparations for the merger, adding in Discovery+ content to HBO Max and vice versa. It also got rid of a number of movies and TV shows from HBO Max in 2022, including some that were exclusive to the service, in order to save money from paying out royalties. The new plan, according to the WSJ, is to keep Discovery+ as a separate streaming service. HBO Max will reportedly be renamed to Max as part of a spring revamp of that service, which will allegedly still combine content from that service and Discovery Plus. HBO Max currently charges subscribers $9.99 a month with ads and $15.99 a month without ads. It's also available at no additional cost for people who include HBO in their cable and satellite TV plans. Warner Bros. Discovery has also sent a number of its streaming shows to free streaming outlets like Tubi and The Roku Channel, and it also plans to launch a free, ad-based, streaming service later this year. That announced HBO Max-Discovery+ merger might not happen after all

The more neutral name is intended to protect the premium HBO brand. Longtime AT&T executive John Stankey, who became CEO in July 2020, speaks onstage at the HBO Max WarnerMedia Investor Day on October 29, 2019, in Burbank, California. Getty Images | Presley Ann By now, you may have heard that the two major TV streaming services run by Warner Bros. Discovery (HBO Max and Discovery+) are set to merge soon. Thanks to a new report from CNBC, we now have a good inkling of what the new combined service will be called. The historically reliable financial publication cites sources familiar with the matter who say Warner Bros. Discovery lawyers are vetting the name "Max," which the company's executives have chosen for the service. It notes that the name could still change but that Max is "the likely choice" and that boots are on the proverbial ground trying to make it a reality. Until now, the company's leaders have called the new service by the temporary codename "BEAM" internally. The name change could help to resolve a perplexing history for the HBO brand that viewers have grappled with in recent years. For ages, the HBO cable channel's name was associated with premium shows and films that were notably distinct from much of the other content on television. But as streaming technology took off, there was confusion over exactly what the difference was between the HBO cable network's two streaming services: HBO Go and HBO Now. (Go required customers to sign up via a traditional cable provider, whereas Now was a fully digital service that did not require a cable subscription.) Then came HBO Max, which merged HBO content with shows and films from some (but not all) of the other properties owned by the conglomerate, such as DC Comics, Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. films, and so on. While HBO Max likely benefitted from the prestige brand recognition of the HBO name, company executives reportedly worried that the name's cachet would be diluted because it now covered a wider range of content. With even more content coming under the streaming service's umbrella with the coming Discovery+ merger, a name change to Max would allow HBO to keep its unique identity while retaining some part of the HBO Max name to (maybe) avoid confusing existing customers. In other words: It's all been a bit of a mess that's been getting messier by the day, and Warner Bros. Discovery is taking the service merge as an opportunity to more or less hit a reset button on the whole affair. When Max launches, it will add Discovery+'s library of content from networks like the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, HGTV, Food Network, CNN, and A&E (among others) to what we've already seen in HBO Max, making for one of the most robust libraries of original content on any streaming service. The new service's interface will be broken into clear sections based on brand. That's similar to Disney+, which draws lines between shows and films from the Marvel, Star Wars, Disney, and National Geographic brands, among others. Max (if that is indeed its name) is slated to launch in spring 2023. There have been no announcements about its pricing, but HBO Max and Discovery+ cost $14.99 and $6.99 monthly for their ad-free tiers. When HBO Max and Discovery+ merge, they’ll have a new name

Warner Bros Discovery is so pleased with the progress of the merger that it now wants to launch the new app in the spring of 2023. In an earnings call today, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced that the merging of HBO Max and Discovery Plus was going so well that the target date for the launch of the new service would be moving from summer 2023 to spring 2023. From their user interface to their backend to their content, the two services are extraordinarily different, with HBO Max likely leading Discovery Plus in subscriptions as it had approximately 76.8 million users in April before the acquisition, and the combined services now have 94.9 million subscribers. But Zaslav’s plan has always been to merge the two services, which his team views as targeting very different markets. Early this year, a slide claiming HBO Max skewed male and Discovery Plus skewed female offended users of both services even while reinforcing Zaslav’s view on the matter. Zaslav, as I’ve noted before, isn’t particularly concerned with who gets offended in his quest to make Warner Bros. Discovery a profitable company. On the earnings call, he noted that when the show Fixer Upper: The Castle premiered on HBO Max, it quickly moved into the top five most watched shows on the service, confirming WBD’s “thesis” that a combined app will be more successful and drive more subscriptions and less churn. The show also aired on the Magnolia Network and streamed on Discovery Plus. It’s Zaslav’s hope that this merged app will drive not just increased subscriptions but also significantly higher advertising revenue. As for the content coming to the new service, the plan is to spend even more money on new content. “We’re leaning in,” he said on the call. Though he noted early in the call that “It’s no longer about how much, it’s about how good.” To that end, he also mentioned the content abruptly pulled from WBD’s services earlier this year. The removals happened so suddenly they often surprised even the show creators themselves. “We didn’t take one show off the platform that was gonna help us in any way,” Zaslav said, noting that WBD was directing the money saved toward new content. This is likely great to hear if you have a new Game of Thrones pitch but absolutely lousy if you’re one of the many animation creators who saw their shows disappear overnight. The date of the big HBO Max and Discovery Plus merger moved up

Warner Bros. Discovery reported its Q2 2023 earnings, revealing a drop of 1.8 million total streaming subscribers across HBO Max, Discovery+ and the new service Max. The company now has 95.8 million streaming subscribers globally, down from 97.6 million in Q1. The loss is attributed mainly to account overlaps, as some customers canceled extra subscriptions after merging HBO Max and Discovery+ into Max. Max launched in May. And WBD's streaming president, J.B. Perrette, stated that 70% of existing HBO Max subscribers moved over to the new platform in the first week. Discovery+, however, lost subscribers during the transition. The Q2 period covers April 1 to June 30, so Max's results were only a partial factor. The upcoming Q3 report will fully reflect Max's impact. Total Q2 revenues were $10.36 billion, slightly below forecasts of $10.46 billion. Warner Bros. Discovery saw a net loss of $1.24 billion, increased from $1.07 billion last quarter. The company has paid down $9 billion in debt since the merger, including $1.6 billion in Q2. Max now also offers live sports and news streaming, though details are still limited. WBD previously predicted U.S. streaming would turn a profit this year, but it remains to be seen how the merger and Max transition will impact that timeline. In earning call report, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said: We remain bullish with respect to our delevering story and expect to be comfortably below 4.0x levered by the end of the year and at our target of 2.5-3.0x gross leverage by the close of 2024. [It] is tracking well ahead of our financial projections, having generated positive EBITDA in the first half of the year. The earnings report provides key insights into how WBD is progressing after merging HBO Max and Discovery+, as investors watch closely to gauge Max's success. While streaming subscriptions dipped post-merger, WBD expressed confidence in the ongoing Max rollout. Source

Warner Bros. Discovery has begun the process of combining HBO Max with Discovery+. A unified streaming service that will offer content from both platforms will arrive next year. Apart from a premium ad-free subscription, the service will also offer an ad-lite tier. As reported earlier, HBO Max and Discovery+, two streaming services that are quite diverse in terms of content served, are coming under the same roof. The new service doesn’t have any official name yet, but is expected to arrive in the summer of 2023, announced Discovery chief David Zaslav during the second-quarter earnings call. The United States will be the first region to welcome the new streaming service, and 39 counties in Latin America will soon follow. European subscribers will be able to access the service in 2024, followed by the Asia-Pacific. The service could also enter a few as-yet-untapped new markets. JB Perrette, CEO, and President, Global Streaming and Games, hinted at why HBO Max is being merged with Discovery+: There’s lots to do, and we’re determined to get it right. We recognize that both of our existing products have shortcomings. HBO Max has a competitive feature set, but has had performance and customer issues. Discovery Plus has best-in-class performance and consumer ratings, but more limited features. Our combined service will focus on delivering the best of both. The combined streaming service is expected to assimilate nearly all the content from HBO Max and Discovery+. In other words, titles from Warner’s considerably huge portfolio, which includes HBO, CNN, DC Comics, Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Magnolia Network, OWN, TBS, and TNT, could be available through a single subscription. It is not clear if “Max Originals” will be a part of the package. However, a few days prior to the combined service’s launch, HBO Max and Discovery+ will start sharing select content. HBO and HBO Max had a total of 76.8 million global subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2022. Discovery+ is nowhere close, but collectively, the two services currently have 92 million subscribers. After merging the two streaming services, WarnerMedia Discovery hopes to reach 130 million global subscribers by 2025. Via: TV Line Unified HBO Max/Discovery+ streaming service to arrive next year with an ad-lite tier