As a result of the Warner Bros. merger with Discovery, the two arms of the streaming slate will be coming together.
Following the bombshell announcement that it would be killing the nearly completed feature film Batgirl, the company now says that it will be merging with Discovery+ and its reality programming.
David Zaslav, the head of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a Thursday investment call they want to be flexible towards user preferences.
There are more consumer segments to milk, according to Jean-Briac Perrette, Discovery's CEO. He said that the name of the service will be announced soon.
The CEO said that both of their products have flaws. Hbo Max has had issues with customers. Discovery+ has the best performance and consumer ratings.
According to four anonymous sources, there is a move in this direction by HBO. In the first quarter of this year, it had grown by 3 million subscribers. The Warner Bros. CEO said they weren't interested in outspending the competitors. They promise to have a total subscriber base of around 130 million.
A free, ad-based subscription tier is going to be created by the company, along with the regular subscription service. Warner Bros.' old library of classic films may be the focus of this new free tier. Some of their back catalog will be re- looked at.
The CEO said this will help support their ads platform and increase monetization.
The world realized it had been removing shows from the HBO Max service for weeks after Warner Bros. Discovery announced they were killing the anticipated multimillion-dollar Batgirlmovie. The new executives at the top of both Warner Bros. and HBO are said to be more interested in theater profits than in streaming subscribers. Executives wouldn't say what happened with Batgirl, but said they have a 10 year plan for DC.
There is no comparison to what happens when a movie is released in theaters. There is no economic case for it.
According to Warner Bros. Discovery's Q2 earnings, there were 92.1 million direct-to-consumer subscribers to the company. Restructuring costs and buying up sports rights cost the company over a billion dollars. The revenue was down compared to last year. The net losses were over 3 billion dollars. The ill-fated CNN+, which didn't have the chance to scream before it was axed, is one of the struggles.
Warner's move is curious considering that Paramount Global and its flagship streaming service Paramount+ announced today that they had added millions of subscribers. In terms of new subscribers, Disney-owned Hulu is doing better than Disney+, which is owned by Mouse.
Competition is difficult on most of these streaming services. The company showed it had lost subscribers in the second quarter, but not as much as they had thought.
At a time of Game of Throne-level machinations at the top of both Warner Bros. According to a recent report, Zaslav has been grilled by lawmakers over his hiring practices.
There are rumors that a George R.R. Martin-esque employee is going to be let go. The Wrap reported Wednesday that the company planned to lay off 70% of its development staff. It would involve cutting the executive level as well.
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