What is HBO Max?
The AT&T owned company is ready to step up its game in an increasingly competitive landscape of streaming services.
On Wednesday, May 27, a new HBO app enters the fray: HBO Max.
The new $15-a-month streaming service gives HBO subscribers a third streaming option, but Now and Go are sticking around for now.
HBO Max bulked up a much broader offer than the regular HBO channel or HBO Now service, thanks to Warner Media’s parent company AT&T’s investments in expensive deals aimed not only to provide popular reruns like Friends and The Big Bang Theory but also to produce original content.
According to Deadline Hollywood, HBO Max, has already signed up comedians including Chelsea Handler, Tracy Morgan, John Early, Rose Matafeo, and Ahir Shah as well as a slate of five specials from Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco.
Original content production will be provided in “waves”: at launch, the service will have six, including an anthology series called Love Life starring Anna Kendrick and a quarantine cooking show from singer-actress Selena Gomez, in which she’s joined remotely by chefs every episode.
HBO Max’s second wave of originals will add new seasons of existing shows that are going to be HBO Max exclusives however, the summer slate will also include the Aug. 6 premiere of Seth Rogen’s comedy film An American Pickle.
A week before its launch, WarnerMedia’s new streaming platform has locked distribution deals with seven additional partners: Altice USA, Cox Communications, Microsoft Xbox, Samsung, Sony PlayStation, Verizon and the National Cable Television Cooperative.
They join the already onboard Charter Communications, Hulu, YouTube TV, Apple TV and AT&T’s own outlets, including DirecTV.
Three notable holdouts, for now, are Comcast, Amazon and Roku.
AT&T has billed HBO Max as a sort of supercharged version of HBO, giving you everything that service offers as well as lots of other shows and movies you can’t watch on HBO short, but in concrete, what are the differences between HBO MAX, HBO Now and HBO Go streaming services? How will this affect HBO subscribers?
Here’s a list of differences according to Cnet:
- HBO Max is a separate service from the HBO you already know, although it costs the same at $14.99 per month.
- If you pay for HBO already via your cable, satellite or cord-cutter live TV subscription, you can use the HBO Go app to stream those shows on other devices like your phone, tablet or another TV.
- If you don’t pay for HBO already through an existing TV provider, you can use the HBO Now app for streaming.
- If you want to stream all of HBO plus all the new Max offer, you need the HBO Max app when it comes out on May 27.
- Being part of AT&T’s Warner Media bundle, HBO Max will be automatically bundled with other different services, a perk similar to some Verizon customers getting a year of Disney+ free, but on a larger scale.
