HBO Max & Discovery Plus To Be Combined Into Single Platform

Warner Bros. Discovery is moving ahead with expected plans for it to merge HBO Max & Discovery Plus into a single service. According to Variety, Discovery confirmed that it will merge the two service into a single platform rather than offer them as a bungle. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, who will lead the newly-merged Warner Bros. Discovery, confirmed the plans on Monday.

Wiedenfels did say that the first step would be bundling the two services as they figure out the best way to combine then. He noted, “One of the most important items here is that we believe in a combined product as opposed to a bundle… We believe that the breadth and depth of this content offering is going to be a phenomenal consumer value proposition. The question is, in order to get to that point and do it in a way that’s actually a great user experience for our subscribers, that’s going to take some time. Again, that’s nothing that’s going to happen in weeks — hopefully not in years, but in several months — and we will start working on an interim solution in the meantime. So right out of the gate, we’re working on getting the bundling approach ready, maybe a single sign-on, maybe ingesting content into the other product, etc., so that we can start to get some benefits early on. But the main thrust is going to be harmonizing the technology platform. Building one very, very strong combined direct-to-consumer product and platform, that’s going to take a while.”

There’s no word on how much the combined platform would cost, though he did say that Warner Bros. Discovery will have both ad-free and ad-lite products. Currently, Discovery Plus costs $4.99 per month with ads or $6.99 without ads. HBO Max costs $9.99 per month with ads and $14.99 a month without.