The new owners (Discovery) planned to merge all three services into one HBO Max. This was something the trade papers noted was planned. CNN+ had been added late into AT&T’s control of CNN, and after the Discovery takeover, Discovery had planned to merge all OTT services into HBO Max. No loss since CNN+ will now be part of HBO Max, and HBO plans to make their money on their HBO premium pay series and Discovery reality shows.
Get ready for illegal street racing on CNN Center with Oklahoma City folks doing it.
From WBD Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels in March:
One of the most important items here is that we believe in a combined product as opposed to a bundle… We believe that the breadth and depth of this content offering is going to be a phenomenal consumer value proposition. The question is, in order to get to that point and do it in a way that’s actually a great user experience for our subscribers, that’s going to take some time. Again, that’s nothing that’s going to happen in weeks — hopefully not in years, but in several months — and we will start working on an interim solution in the meantime. So right out of the gate, we’re working on getting the bundling approach ready, maybe a single sign-on, maybe ingesting content into the other product, etc., so that we can start to get some benefits early on. But the main thrust is going to be harmonizing the technology platform. Building one very, very strong combined direct-to-consumer product and platform, that’s going to take a while.”
