HBO Max and Paramount+ will combine into one direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service if and when Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is complete.
“As we said, we do plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct to consumer subscribers,” Paramount CEO David Ellison said during a Monday investor call outlining his broader business plan. “We think that really positions us to compete with the leaders in the space. At Paramount, by the middle of this year, we’ll have completed the consolidation of our three services under one unified stack, and you can see us taking a similar approach to this platform going forward. And we think the combined offering, and given the amount of content and what we can do from the tech side, really will put us in a position to be able to compete with the most scaled players in DTC.”
However, HBO as a brand will continue to “operate with independence,” Ellison said.
Good call.
“Casey[Bloys] and his team do absolutely a remarkable job at HBO,” Ellison continued. “And as we said, we do plan for that to be able to operate with independence, so that HBO can, candidly, do what it does incredibly well. Our viewpoint is HBO should stay HBO. They built a phenomenal brand. They are a leader in the space, and we just want them to continue doing more of it. But by bringing the platforms together, all of our content will be able to reach even a broader audience than we can do standalone.”
Ellison’s personal fave HBO IP is Game of Thrones, which just feels so appropriate given the past year of his moguling.
It was not a foregone conclusion that HBO Max and Paramount+ would merge into one, even after it became a foregone conclusion that Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery would. There are pros and cons to the planned consolidation and to a path with continued separation, as I outlined here on Friday.
In November, I asked Bloys if he was nervous about a future with HBO potentially under Ellison and Paramount. At the time, Netflix wasn’t even (publicly) in the game.
“I had a town hall a couple weeks ago, and I said, ‘The only thing you can do in this process, and the best thing you can do, is just focus on your job, which is making the most impactful programming in whatever genre,’” Bloys replied. “It’s kind of a waste of energy, because I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Now, that being said, I’m obviously very proud of what we’ve done at HBO and HBO Max. I would like to see that continue,” he continued. “We’ve all worked at HBO for a long time. I’m proud of our track record, but you have to go into these processes with an open mind. And a lot of it is out of our hands.”
Also on the Monday morning conference call, Ellison committed to 45-day theatrical windows ahead of a PVOD run, itself before SVOD/AVOD. Paramount Skydance Warner Bros. Discovery (my name for it) will be formed under a $79 billion mountain of net debt.
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