Against the eventful corporate backdrop of Warner Bros Discovery trimming expenses and trying to convince Wall Street of its strategy, the company is offering limited-term discounts on streaming service HBO Max for both new and existing subscribers.
Anyone signing up for a full-year plan by October 30 will pay $104.99 for the ad-free tier and $69.99 for the ad-supported one, a 30% savings compared with the going rates of $149.99 and $99.99. Compared with month-to-month pricing, which always runs higher than the year-at-a-time rate, the savings reach 42%. The deal is only for the first year and must be ordered through the HBO Max website or via distribution partners Roku, Google Play, Apple, and Amazon.
The lower prices are timed with the long-awaited rollout of Game of Thrones spinoff series House of the Dragon, which debuts this week.
Even before closing their merger last April, WBD execs indicated they plan to fuse HBO Max with Discovery+ into a single offering by next year. The company is also understood to be contemplating a name change and rebranding of the 2-year-old HBO Max.
As it aims to entice more subscribers into the fold, HBO Max is also bidding farewell to about three dozen titles, including the Harry Potter films and about 20 originals.
HBO Max recently began being measured weekly by Nielsen. It has charted with Friends, an enduringly popular acquired series, as well as the The Bob’s Burgers Movie. Unlike in 2021, when HBO Max featured all 17 Warner Bros film releases on the same day they opened in theaters, the company has pursued a more conventional windows strategy for films. Titles like The Batman have moved to streaming only after about six weeks in theaters. Elvis, which has grossed more than $142 million domestically since its release on June 24, has already exceeded that timeline and the company has not yet confirmed its streaming destiny on HBO Max.
