Well, it seems that Warner Bros. Discovery will soon not have 2 streaming services in the form of HBO Max and Discovery+, but a single service. One that will allegedly get a new name. It’d certainly be a bit awkward to call it by a horribly clunky hyphenated name now, wouldn’t it?
Hopefully Not HBO Discovery-Max+
CNBC just reported that Warner Bros. Discovery executive and lawyers are apparently closing in on a final name for their combined HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming service that will replace both existing streaming services. Currently, the company’s lawyers expect the new name to be Max. Just Max, and nothing else. I guess they’re going for a simplistic and minimalist design for this new name. While CNBC don’t name their source(s), they do mention that they are people “familiar with the matter”. Combined with the news company reporting it, it does appear to be genuine. So Max is probably what we’re going to get as the title of this new streaming service.
However, CNBC does mention that Max still isn’t a finalized name. Apparently, senior executives at Warner Bros. Discovery are still debating over it, and lawyers for the same are still vetting other options as of this writing. What those other options are though, are still unknown as of this time. Mostly because those execs and lawyers certainly aren’t letting us in on their decision-making process. The closest thing we have comes from the codename for this new combined streaming service. Warner Bros. Discovery apparently used it as an internal name to reference it by while they are still deciding on a final name for it. Apparently, this codename/internal name is BEAM. There’s no word if BEAM will be part of the new name.
As you might expect with something like this, there is no timeline for when Warner Bros. Discovery will finalize their new name for this new streaming platform combining HBO Max and Discovery+. All we know is that it might be soon. Or well, soon-ish. Tune back in to THS later (potentially much later) to find out that new name when we do.
Warner Bros. Discovery: Ditching the HBO Part?
As you all might have noticed, neither of the new names Warner Bros. Discovery have in mind for their new combined streaming service have “HBO” in the name. It seems to be that they’re just going to drop the “HBO” part from now on. CNBC speculates that it might be to avoid confusion with the previous 2 attempts at HBO Max. Do any of us even remember HBO Go, and then the later HBO Now? That’s probably for the best, considering how badly both attempts at a streaming service flopped.
Maybe Warner Bros. Discovery wants to distance themselves from the embarrassment there? Or do that, and get a fresh start? Well, whatever it may be, we’ll find out sometime in 2023. Since, you know, that’s when they intend to roll this new combined streaming service out.
Source: CNBC
