Discovery Plus and HBO Max are going to be merged into one to create a new streaming service called Max. Warner Bros. Discovery announced the new service that will launch on May 23rd and cost from $9.99 up to $19.99 per month. There will be another middle tier priced at $15.99.
The Ultimate tier of $19.99 per month is among the two ad-free plans and comes with 4K HDR Dolby Atmos for some content, 100 offline downloads, and four concurrent streams and this may be the most popular option for those who hate ads and don’t care about 4k streaming and are willing to live with HD quality, two concurrent streams, and 30 offline downloads. Meanwhile, the cheapest ad-supported plan offers HD quality and two concurrent streams but with tonnes of ads.
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In a twist, the company announced that the regular HBO Max app will be removed and automatically updated to Max on May 23rd, however, Discovery Plus will remain as a standalone option that retains the same $4.99 per month price with ads or $6.99 per month without. Warner Bros. Discovery will automatically migrate HBO Max users, their profiles, watch histories, and billing information over to the new service.
This move has been long in the works (long enough that you’d think Warner Bros. Discovery would come up with a better name than just “Max”). WarnerMedia completed its messy megamerger with Discovery last year, which resulted in the removal of several shows and movies.
The interface of the Max app itself will also come with some improvements. JB Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery’s global streaming and games head, acknowledged that both the HBO Max and Discovery Plus apps have “important shortcomings” that the company will address with Max’s new interface, including a new content navigation system, personalized recommendations, and a shortcut to save content to watch later lists. Hopefully, this means Warner Bros..
