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HBO Max Announces New $9.99 Ad-Supported Tier That's Launching in June

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The HBO Max streaming service is gaining a new ad-supported tier that will be priced at $9.99 per month, which is $5 cheaper than the $14.99 price point of a standard HBO Max subscription.

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News of a cheaper ad-supported HBO Max tier first circulated in March, and the new pricing was officially announced at a WarnerMedia event. The $9.99 tier will be available starting the first week of June.

HBO Max will feature the "lightest ad load in the streaming industry" for its ad-supported tier. It will include access to HBO's original programming plus the back catalog of content from HBO, Warner Bros., DC, Turner Classic Movies, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and more.

Not included is access to same-day premiere film releases from Warner Bros., a feature that will require a full $14.99 subscription.

The ad-supported tier will feature limited commercials, and in the future, pause ads that show up when a show is paused, and branded discovery, which will see ads shown in the content discovery process.

Article Link: HBO Max Announces New $9.99 Ad-Supported Tier That's Launching in June
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/19/hbo-max-ad-supported-tier-2/
There are some people in the world who are:

A) Price sensitive and can't afford more than $10 a month for a streaming service
B) Don't care about advertisements

I'm not one of those people. I have never accepted any service with ads that doesn't allow me to pay more to remove them. In fact, when, as a YouTube Red subscribe, a video has a product placement, I unsubscribe from the channel and don't come back.

My girlfriend spends an hour every day playing a game for 6 months now that is 99 cents to disable advertisements. I watch her sit through 10 second ads a few times a day for months. it's driving me insane. Why doesn't she just spend the dollar?!?!? Actually, I'm going to Apple Pay Cash her a dollar now and ask her to spend it on ad-free.

Hint MR Editors, if you offered an ad-free RSS feed, I'd pay for it (i.e. no promotions/giveaways/deals)

EDIT: and for your information, NO I am not fun at parties nor am I ever invited to any.
 
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If I was 100% invested in HBO’s content then I would pay full price. Because I’m paying several streaming services and I watch a little of all of them, the ad tier makes sense for me. I don’t mind a few ads.
 
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As a comparison:
  • Discovery+ offers $2 or 40% discount
  • HBO Max offers $5 or 50% discount
  • Hulu offers $6 or 70% discount
  • Paramount+ offers $4 or 67% discount
  • Peacock offers $5 or 50% discount
AT&T's high-end broadband and wireless plans include ad-free HBO Max ($14.99). AT&T should borrow Comcast's playbook and offer ad-supported HBO Max to non-economy postpaid customers at $4.99 or ad-free at $9.99.
 
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kiensoy said:
If I was 100% invested in HBO’s content then I would pay full price. Because I’m paying several streaming services and I watch a little of all of them, the ad tier makes sense for me. I don’t mind a few ads.
Click to expand...
The key to your statement is "a few ads". The Hulu tier with ads is almost unwatchable. The same ads, over and over again. Awful.
 
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Granted I'm jaded, but I feel like this is the precursor to them bumping up the price of the regular $14.99 tier, and having this 'cheaper' tier option as a fall back in hopes to stem the churn.
 
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prizm said:
The key to your statement is "a few ads". The Hulu tier with ads is almost unwatchable. The same ads, over and over again. Awful.
Click to expand...
It wouldn't be so bad if Hulu makes $2/month Black Friday pricing permanent. But at $5.99, it can be a bit too much. I don't mind the same ads repeating so much. I just don't like the frequency of ads. Make the ad break longer but less frequent.
 
nutmac said:
AT&T's high-end broadband and wireless plans include ad-free HBO Max ($14.99). AT&T should borrow Comcast's playbook and offer ad-supported HBO Max to non-economy postpaid customers at $4.99 or ad-free at $9.99.
Click to expand...

In a similar vein, I'm curious what effect AT&T spinning off HBO/Warner Media into its own company for the merger with Discovery is going to have on the AT&T HBO subsidy.
 
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Scipster said:
Or you can get high quality content from Apple TV+ for only $4.99/month. Ad free. Same price since launch. Highly recommend.

But yeah, pay for ads? I don't think so. Free with ads, maybe.
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I do have an Apple TV+ subscription and I watch many of its shows. Many of them are great. But we can’t compare apples (lol) and oranges. Netflix, HBO, Disney have way more shows and movies to give in their subscription than Apple. It will take a few years to get there.

But yeah. Having to pay for a subscription and still having ads is bad.
 
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The more streaming services they come up, the less TV I seem to be watching. I don’t watch much TV in the summer to begin with, so I’m cancelling HBO and Hulu in the next couple of weeks once I finish a couple of shows I’m watching. However, I’m done with ads on streaming services. I will never sign up for a service that makes me pay AND includes ads. I’ll just continue to check out free books from library that has a great online selection and read much, much more.
 
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prizm said:
The key to your statement is "a few ads". The Hulu tier with ads is almost unwatchable. The same ads, over and over again. Awful.
Click to expand...
Exactly, I’ve seen the Google Pixel saved me in a car accident ad so many times and jokingly said “maybe they shouldn’t have”.

Plus Hulu’s ads are about 30x louder than the shows I watch.
 
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