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Warner Bros. to Replace HBO Max With New 'Max' Streaming Service
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This totally paves the way for the long-awaited “Skinemax+” streaming service add-on
HBO means something (Home Box Office) - premium quality television. Max is bland, generic and is used in other products including Nike Max, Pepsi Max and … dogs called Max. What a boneheaded decision to ditch this branding.
I believe I’m outie. I might pay for a month or two to give them a chance, but I’m thinking they want to take away the name “HBO” because the crowd at Discover are giving up on good movies, just the way the Discover Channel, which started out as something like the Smithsonian Channel, are now after nothing but cheap productions and money.
They should have never gotten rid of that theme either. You are right it just sticks in your head and get you pumped up to watch the HBO Movie/Series, etc…
Seriously I’m begging to worry about HBO. Terrible rebranding, they had canceled so many great shows and removed them from portfolio. It looks odd to me.
Thanks, that makes more sense than their FAQ
The new rate for me is the same as the old rate (but of course with less benefits haha), so I'll be saving $7/mo at least.
At this point I'm pretty sure I'm going to cancel my account, and won't be back except for a few times a year to stream the shows I want to watch. And then when I'm done, they're gone. There is no way they can justify not having 4K UHD on all of the versions.
This just proves the stupid is still strong at WB.
This just proves the stupid is still strong at WB.
I am an AT&T customer with HBO Max included with my plan. This afternoon I received a (hopeful) good news email that my HBO Max account will be automatically converted to the new “Max” on May 23. As far as I’m concerned, as long as I keep my AT&T service, I can’t imagine they can yank away this grandfathered perk.
In the email:
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Yeah, I think there are some people sitting in the corporate boardroom who don't understand that they're shooting themselves in the foot, obliterating a brand that's extremely well known, and associated with quality in a lot of people's minds. I'm guessing that someone on the non-HBO side of things (Discovery?) got their feathers ruffled by any suggested name that included "HBO", so... the company is shooting itself in the foot to assuage someone's ego.
For the last few years, HBO and Apple+ have been the two services that seemed to really care about production values and to throw money at stories that they thought would be compelling - Netflix throws less money and in a much more scattershot way, same with Amazon Prime - with those two, you might get something good, or not, but with HBO and Apple+, it always at least looked really good. Now with the Max-Monster cancelling all sorts of shows and movies, and dropping the well-known brand, we might be down to just Apple+. And Apple+'s problem has been quantity - Ted Lasso, Severance, and Foundation have been awesome, but they don't have the dozens/hundreds of really compelling titles that HBO has (had?).
On cable, I assume they show promos for other of their shows, and little shorts, between movies/shows that are at scheduled times (i.e. to fill in between the end of one movie and the top of the hour) - that's what they used to do, long ago. But most people these days presumably use their streaming on-demand service, with no ads (eh, they often put in a skippable promo for one of their other movies/shows at the start of whatever movie/show you're streaming, but that's hardly an ad in the traditional "buy this soap!" sense).
It’s a big name with significant brand recognition/history going away so to some degree justified. I thought the HBO channel was changing as well to the new Max channel or something. Maybe they have plans to change that later this year?
This is good news. I've had "free" HBO Max included with my AT&T internet (gigabit fiber - I wanted the reliability, the HBO was an unexpected benefit). I was quite happy to have it, but was annoyed that they dropped some shows (the change caused me to binge watch The Nevers and Raised by Wolves, before they went away), and figured AT&T would drop it after they sold HBO. And with the changes, I was dubious about subscribing on my own. For free, I'll keep it.
Though I am wondering, now that's there's multiple tiers, whether they'll only give us one of the lesser tiers (with or without a way to upgrade), or some "AT&T legacy" tier. I don't care about simultaneous steams or downloading things, but I don't want commercials, and I do want 4K and Atmos (also don't care about the Discovery content - those channels went in hard on "reality TV" ages ago - give me their old documentaries and I might care).
Also wondering if this is for a limited time, to fulfill contracts AT&T has with customers (us or other middlemen), or if it'll be an ongoing thing.
Did the CEO name the service after his dog or something? This is what bad executives can do to a good company.
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HBO saw what Google has done over the years, with creating and promoting communication platforms, waiting for them to get popular, and then abandoning them, and said, "hold my beer".
I'm guessing the Discovery side of the boardroom table didn't want the name HBO on "their" service. Will be in the running for one of the top ten stupidest corporate decisions this year.
Introducing 'HBO Max Pro Plus'... 😂
Couldn't they just call it 'HBO+' and call it a day? I know the "+" name is overused but I think it's become a simple and effective marketing strategy to indicate it's a subscription based pay model.
Couldn't they just call it 'HBO+' and call it a day? I know the "+" name is overused but I think it's become a simple and effective marketing strategy to indicate it's a subscription based pay model.
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They're wanting to take the service global with this relaunch, and I'm guessing that's the main reason for the new name. The HBO brand isn't especially well known outside of the USA.
Possibly, but it's not like "Max" means anything outside OR inside of the USA, lol. Surprised they didn't just name it Warner Bros+
Let me guess you like M1 Ultra instead of M1/M2 Max or as also mention the iPhone Pro Max too small a phone for you. Also Home Box Office is a really old term now so it's bland, generic and used to describe what people collect in garages.
BTW the origins of that box office involves a different type of box: the balcony compartments along the sides of a theater, where affluent patrons could enjoy a performance from an enviable vantage point (without having to mingle too much with the common people). Yeah the spoiled rich.
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