Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly lost 1.8 million subscribers from Max, Discovery+ and HBO in the second quarter (April 1st-June 30th) of this year.
As it stands, subscribers now total 95.8 million across those services. In the first quarter of this year, three services (HBO, HBO Max, Discovery+) were up 1.6 million to 97.6 million overall across those three platforms.
The biggest impact of this second quarter was the combination of HBO Max and Discovery+ into the new ‘Max’ service which launched May 23rd. Whilst Discovery+ still exists as a standalone, HBO Max is gone in favor of Max.
As a result, there was some expected churn as some subscribers to both the old HBO Max and Discovery+ ditched both services in favor of the combined Max service.
Marketing costs for the rebrand, and the box-office failure of “The Flash” film, also had an impact on the quarterly results. Next quarter is expected to look rosier with the success of “Barbie” and a more settled-in Max.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a letter to shareholders that the launch of Max in the U.S. is “tracking well ahead of our financial projections.”
Source: Yahoo
