WarnerMedia has announced that its upcoming streaming service is going to be called HBO Max. HBO Max will be WarnerMedia’s attempt at entering the lucrative and ever-expanding world of entertainment streaming. This new streaming service will be going up against giants such as Netflix and Hulu.
The announcement came on Tuesday 9 July 2019, along with a list of shows that will be airing on HBO Max. HBO Max will include all shows currently airing on HBO as well as new original shows. truTV, TBS and TNT chief Kevin Reilly has ordered original TV series to be produced for HBO Max. Some of these original shows are Tokyo Vice, Dune: The Sisterhood, Gremlins and more. This is a strategy to compete with other streaming platforms that have their own original series, such as Netflix’s Stranger Things and Hulu’s Marvel’s Runaways.
HBO Max will air shows from other networks such as:
- Cartoon Network
- Warner Bros
- Rooster Teeth
- The CW
- Adult Swim
- Looney Tunes
Earlier this week it was announced that the popular TV show Friends will no longer be airing on Netflix starting in 2020. WarnerMedia owns the rights to Friends and licensed it to Netflix. With HBO Max on its way, WarnerMedia is hoping to gain a large number of viewers by making Friends exclusive to their streaming service. Although there is no official price for the new streaming service, it is expected to cost more than HBO’s current streaming service, HBO Now, which costs $14.99 per month. WarnerMedia has said that its new streaming service “is anticipated to premiere with 10,000 hours of premium content.”
“HBO Max will bring together the diverse riches of WarnerMedia to create programming and user experiences not seen before in a streaming platform. HBO’s world-class programming leads the way, the quality of which will be the guiding principle for our new array of Max Originals, our exciting acquisitions, and the very best of the Warner Bros. libraries, starting with the phenomenon that is ‘Friends’,” said WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct-To-Consumer Chairman Robert Greenblatt in a press release issued by WarnerMedia.
HBO Max is currently scheduled to launch in Spring 2020.
Edited by Kojo Essah
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