Paramount Makes A Big HBO Max Announcement That Will Change Streaming Forever

Streaming subscribers can expect at least one more massive shakeup in the near future. After recently surviving the never-ending name change debacle between "HBO Max" and "Max" and back again over the last few years, customers can now anticipate the impending merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance to leave its mark on the industry as a whole. Variety reports that Paramount intends to fold Paramount+ into HBO Max, just one of many cost-cutting measures (crassly referred to as "cost synergies," in corporate-speak) that Paramount CEO David Ellison plans to enact now that two independent studios are set to become one giant one.

Somewhat similar to the borders between Disney+ and Hulu continuing to fade following Disney's merger with 20th Century Fox, it appears that Paramount intends on consolidating the millions of subscribers on WBD's side with their own existing base from Paramount+. Unsurprisingly, while announcing this new approach to investors and analysts this morning, Ellison neglected to mention the thousands and thousands of jobs that will be lost as a result of redundancies. Here's what he did have to say:

"As we said, we do plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct to consumer subscribers. We think that really positions us to compete with the leaders in the space. At Paramount, by the middle of this year, we'll have completed the consolidation of our three services under one unified stack, and you can see us taking a similar approach to this platform going forward. And we think the combined offering, and given the amount of content and what we can do from the tech side, really will put us in a position to be able to compete with the most scaled players in DTC [direct-to-consumer]."

Should Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery's merger pass through all the government regulatory procedures to become official (which is no sure thing just yet), the chief concern among many in the industry will revolve around what becomes of HBO. The prestige home for more elevated television has stood strong as a brand unto itself for decades, weathering all sorts of corporate changeovers while retaining its own distinct identity. Can the same hold true here, despite plenty of skepticism and red flags to go around?

For his part, at least, Paramount head David Ellison is attempting to strike a promising tone. While praising the work of HBO CEO Casey Bloys, he explained during the call:

"Casey and his team do absolutely an remarkable job at HBO. And as we said, we do plan for that to be able to operate with independence, so that HBO can, candidly, do what it does incredibly well. Our viewpoint is HBO should stay HBO. They built a phenomenal brand. They are a leader in the space, and we just want them to continue doing more of it. But by bringing the platforms together, all of our content will be able to reach even a broader audience than we can do standalone."

Taken at face value, this would seem to imply that the HBO team will largely remain in place and continue to operate as its own separate entity within Paramount. Actions will speak louder than words, of course, but HBO has survived unscathed through plenty of bumpy mergers before. There's reason to hope that the same may happen here, but only time will tell.