Paramount+ and HBO Max signage.
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If regulators approve, Paramount+ and HBO Max will be combined into one streaming service paramount skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount CEO David Ellison said on a conference call Monday.
Ellison said on the company’s investor conference call about the WBD deal that the integrated service will have approximately 200 million subscribers, taking into account existing totals. Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery announced last week that they had agreed to sell WBD for $31 a share after Netflix withdrew from a long-running bidding war.
Paramount executives on Monday did not provide details about how the company would price the combined service or what it would be called. Still, Ellison said he has no intention of destroying the HBO brand.
“HBO should remain HBO,” he said, citing its long history of providing high-quality programming.
HBO will likely become a sub-brand within the larger service, according to a person familiar with Paramount’s plans. HBO is currently run by Casey Bloys, whose contract expires in 2027, another person said. Bloys declined to comment.
Paramount also touted the strength of its combined service sports offering, which integrates TNT Sports and CBS Sports.
Paramount executives said they have heard nothing from regulators to suggest that the company’s wide range of sports offerings, including March Madness, NFL, MLB, NHL, Nascar, French Open, Masters, college football and others, could raise antitrust concerns.
HBO streaming journey
HBO has been incorporated into various streaming services under different names in recent years.
Time Warner launched HBO as a streaming option in 2010 called HBO Go. Five years later, HBO also launched HBO Now, giving users a way to access HBO outside of a cable bundle for the first time.
rear AT&T After acquiring Time Warner in 2018 and renaming it WarnerMedia, executives launched HBO Max in 2020 to significantly increase subscriber numbers.
Three years later, after AT&T sold WarnerMedia and merged with Discovery, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav changed the name of the service to Max to indicate the addition of Discovery programming to the service.
That decision was reversed last year, with Zaslav and Bloys deciding to revert to the HBO Max name to emphasize the strength of HBO’s programming.
