As 2022 and 2023 goes down as the era with some of the most interesting and controversial decisions that entertainment studios and companies have made, it’s natural to think some decisions would get backtracked as some are still trying to find their footing while trying to revolutionize their blueprint. One of the most egregious of examples is how the Warner Bros merger with Discovery had been making headlines consistently with company shake-ups and layoffs. The Wall Street Journal now reports that one of their decisions to combine HBO Max and Discovery+ into one streaming platform is no longer going forward, and they have decided to keep Discovery+ as a separate streamer.
Warner Bros Discovery still plans to launch a new streaming platform, however Discovery+ will remain available and continue business as usual going forward. The amendment to their previously announced model was jettisoned in an effort to avoid losing subscribers for Discovery+, which has reached upwards of 20 million. The company feels that many would not be willing to pay the increased fee with the new mega channel, which is estimated to be larger than HBO Max’s fee. The new streaming platform from Warners that was once referred to as simply, Max, still plans to merge content from both services, yet Discovery+ will also sport the new content, but only the ones exclusive to the channel.
It has been a tumultuous year for new CEO David Zaslav as the executive made controversial business moves and stuck to their guns, no matter how unpopular the decisions were. One of the most notorious stories was the shelving of the nearly completed feature film, Batgirl, which DC president Peter Safran deemed to be “unreleasable.” There were also many shows that were given the axe, much to the chagrin of many fans, such as Westworld. The instability of the survival of shows due to whatever rhyme or reason has given some viewers an untrusting eye to the network, even if the show is popular, like the newest hit, The Last of Us. However, Zaslav confides that every movie and TV show silently (and not so silently) removed from the platform are ones with low numbers.