What To Know
- Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are planning a merger that could result in HBO Max and Paramount+ combining into a single streaming app.
- Paramount CEO David Ellison stated that while the services may be unified on one platform, the HBO and Paramount brands will continue to operate independently within the app.
HBO Max and Paramount+ could be combined into one app, should the Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance merger go through. What would this mean for subscribers to the individual streaming services? Previous streaming service mergers shed light on the possibilities.
This plan was teased by Paramount CEO David Ellison during an investor call about the pending merger on Monday, March 2, according to Variety. While the plan is reportedly to combine the two apps into one, Ellison said the brands will “operate with independence.”
“As we said, we do plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers,” Ellison said on the call. “We think that really positions us to compete with the leaders in the space. At Paramount, by the middle of this year, we’ll have completed the consolidation of our three services under one unified stack, and you can see us taking a similar approach to this platform going forward. And we think the combined offering, and given the amount of content and what we can do from the tech side, really will put us in a position to be able to compete with the most scaled players in DTC.”
When are Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount merging?
While Paramount announced its intentions to buy Warner Bros. Discovery on February 27, the merger is not yet official. Netflix had previously been in talks to buy Warner Bros. Discovery since December, but it backed out.
Will HBO Max and Paramount+ combine into one app?
That’s Ellison’s plan, but he told investors that he wants the two brands to operate separately on one service. There was no mention of what a combined app name could be, should that be the plan. Disney+ and Hulu are one app as of 2026, but it’s set up as Hulu existing on Disney+. The same happened with Paramount+ and Showtime, with the latter being absorbed into the former. Ellison said he wants HBO to still have free rein over its content programming.
“Casey [Bloys] and his team do absolutely a remarkable job at HBO,” said Ellison. “And as we said, we do plan for that to be able to operate with independence, so that HBO can, candidly, do what it does incredibly well. Our viewpoint is HBO should stay HBO. They built a phenomenal brand. They are a leader in the space, and we just want them to continue doing more of it. But by bringing the platforms together, all of our content will be able to reach even a broader audience than we can do standalone.”
