When Casey Bloys, the Warner Bros. Discovery executive who runs HBO and its streaming platform Max, took to the company’s upfront stage in May, he had a surprise announcement to share: WBD was pivoting again, and Max would revert to its last name, HBO Max.
“I know you’re all shocked, but the good news is I have a drawer full of stationery from the last time around,” Bloys quipped, to laughs from the crowd.
Look, it takes guts for an executive to recognize a mistake, and to correct it, and that seems to be what happened at WBD. Max was supposed to be their big Netflix killer, with the unscripted and reality shows of Discovery and he premium scripted entertainment of Warners and HBO creating a streaming giant. Except it didn’t quite work out that way.
“[Netflix] is the basic cable of today, and in today’s world, consumers still want to add to their entertainment portfolio with must-have truly unique programming that only we can deliver,” Bloys told journalists in November. “We looked at all the research and came back to what they want are HBO originals, pay-one movies, the Warner Bros. TV library, the procedurals, for lack of a better word, but the elevated network [programming] that we’re working on, documentaries, comedy specials. We just came back from trying to offer too much, so we are trying to be very specific in what people value from us, and want from us.”
So they pivoted, and now HBO Max can become HBO again.
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