Zaslov said during the quarterly earnings call that “we are excited to announce that we have moved up our US launch date from summer of 2023 to sprint. We’ve been very hard at work; we can make the service available to consumers around the globe and get the business running on all cylinders.” So what will it be called? Well, WBD has no clue what to call it just yet. But we do know it will launch in the US first, and then followed by Latin America and Europe in 2024. Currently, the combined service has about 95 million global subscribers. Which puts them squarely in third place behind Netflix and Disney+. Just like with Disney+, HBO MAX and discovery+ really benefited from the pandemic and everyone being forced to stay home.
No word yet on how much it’ll cost
There’s no word just yet on how much this combined service is going to cost. Currently, HBO MAX costs $15 per month ad-free, and $10 per month ad-supported. discovery+ also offers ad-free and ad-supported tiers at $4.99 and $6.99 per month. Which is rather inexpensive, so we could see them combine the prices, for $15 per month for ad-supported and roughly $20 per month for ad-free. Of course, that is all speculation. If they could keep the service under $20 per month without ads, then they would be in a good position to really compete with Netflix. Who currently sells its premium plan at $19.99 per month. And arguably, Warner Bros. Discovery does have a lot better content than Netflix right now.
