HBO Max is joining the price inflation wave sweeping through the streaming business, hiking the cost of its ad-supported and ad-free plans.
Basic with Ads is going up $1 a month to $10.99, the service announced Tuesday, with the Standard plan rising $1.50 to $18.49 and Premium going up $2 to $22.99.
The new prices go into effect immediately for new subscriptions. Existing monthly subscribers will be notified 30 days in advance of their plan renewing, with the higher prices starting from their next billing date on or after November 20.
As of June 30, HBO Max parent Warner Bros. Discovery said it had 125.7 million paying subscribers to all of its streaming services. That blended stat includes HBO Max as well as legacy linear subscribers to HBO, who have access to the streaming service. The company will report its third-quarter financials on November 6.
HBO Max was rebranded from Max earlier this year, undoing a revamp unveiled in 2023. It is a key asset in the mix as WBD undergoes a strategic review of its operations after receiving interest from multiple parties in acquiring all or part of the company. Paramount has submitted an initial bid to acquire the company but the offer was refused. WBD had earlier announced plans to split into two separate companies by next spring.
Compared with the days of the direct-to-consumer streaming boom of 2019 and 2020, when a handful of major new players entered the market to challenge Netflix, prices have jumped sharply across the board. Disney’s initial strategy was to wow consumers with an affordable price point on Disney+, which launched at $7 a month. Apple, similarly, came in a dollar cheaper than that in 2019. In the intervening years, as the difficult economics of streaming became fully apparent, especially for legacy media companies managing linear TV’s decline, the calculus changed. Prices across the board have risen, with many services at or approaching double their initial cost.
WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, speaking at a Wall Street conference in 2023 a few months after the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, addressed the topic of streaming prices, leaving little doubt about the company’s intentions. “There’s no doubt that these products are priced way too low,” he said.
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