WBD has revealed intentions to integrate HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single streaming service slated to launch in the summer of 2023. WBD President and CEO David Zaslav said in the company’s most recent earnings conference that the merged service would come in the United States sooner than projected in the spring of 2023.
According to Fierce Wireless, the combined streaming services currently have 94.9 million members, with HBO and HBO Max accounting for the vast bulk of them. This includes 2.8 million new customers, with the majority (2.3 million) coming from international markets.
WBD intends to establish its own free ad-supported streaming TV service (FAST) in 2023, in addition to the unified streaming service. “As the firm with the industry’s greatest TV and film collection… it enables us to disseminate our material in different ways,” Zaslav said. The business also said that it is investing in content at unprecedented levels, highlighting the appointment of James Gunn and Peter Safran as co-chairmen and CEOs of DC studios.
It’s still unclear what shape or name the merged streaming service would take. However, WBD recently began moving Discovery+ programming to HBO Max, such as Fixer Upper: The Castle, which has quickly become a top five show, according to Zaslav.
