In a bit of surprising news, The Wall Street Journal has reported that Discovery+ will continue to operate as a cheaper, standalone alone service after the planned rebranding of HBO Max this spring. It was long thought that in merging HBO Max and Discovery+ together, they would no longer exist as separate services.
The WSJ cited anonymous sources that said this was part of a strategy to retain Discovery+ subscribers who might be unwilling to pay for a higher-priced service.
The rebranded version of HBO Max, which insiders are saying will be called just “Max,” will still feature content from both the previous iteration of HBO Max and Discovery+ in one app.
All signs seem to indicate that everything from Discovery+ will also be available to subscribers on the new “Max” service, although time will tell if Discovery+ retains some exclusive programming.
This comes after the parent company of HBO Max and Discovery+, Warner Bros Discovery, began to license some of their shows (such as Westworld) to free streaming apps including Tubi and The Roku Channel. They also plan to create some of their own, free ad-supported streaming channels (or FAST channels) later this year.
For more on Discovery+, check out our review here!
