NEW YORK—Warner Bros. Discovery announced during its upfront presentation that Max, the company’s streaming platform, will be rebranded as HBO Max this summer.
The rebrand marks the fourth name change for the service in the last decade, and the fifth name since HBO Go was launched in 2008. The service was called HBO Max from 2020 to 2023, when the name was changed to just Max.
In making the change, WBD cited the importance of HBO’s programming to the service's subscriber growth, with 22 million subs added in the last year. WBD is projecting that the service has “a clear path to over 150 million-plus by the end of 2026.”
“The powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming. Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead,” Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said.
WBD attributed the subscriber growth, which pushed Max to 122.3 million subs in Q1, to its strategy of focusing on programming that is working best like HBO, recent box-office movies, docuseries, certain reality series, and Max and local originals, and de-prioritizing other genres that drive less engagement or acquisition.
The company also said the name change was guided by the fact that “no consumer today is saying they want more content, but most consumers are saying they want better content. With other services filling the more basic needs with volume, WBD has clearly distinguished itself through its quality and distinct stories, and no brand has done that better and more consistently over 50-plus years than HBO … Returning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect from the offering.”
