HBO Max Says Goodbye to Amazon Prime

                                                                                            Brandon Blake
Amazon has canceled HBO Max subscriptions as of last week, as WarnerMedia leaves its bouquet of channels. Anticipating significant subscriber loss with the move, HBO Max has announced a dramatic price cut to head off the potential hemorrhaging. With such a major entertainment business move afoot, we asked entertainment lawyer Los Angeles and industry expert, Brandon Blake, to weigh in on the implications. 


Amazon Prime Video subscribers accounted for just north of 5 million HBO subscribers, so this is no small shift. Will the lure of 50% off for the first 6 months be enough to entice these lost subscribers back, or at least to bring in replacements? Amazon has also fired back, offering $0.99c promotional subs for Paramount+ and other remaining streaming services for two months, creating an intriguing pricing battle all of its own. 


At first glance, the move seems sudden, but, in fact, stems from a 2020 agreement between the two entertainment giants. WarnerMedia wants to bring HBO Max ‘in-house’, and serve as the only entry point to the streamer’s content for subscribers. For Amazon device users, where there is wriggle room for a different solution, they have opted to separate HBO Max into its own app, available through Amazon Fire TV. 


It’s a pattern we’ve seen before from WarnerMedia, first with Roku and then Apple TV, but Amazon will account for the greatest loss of overall subscribers so far. Yet WarnerMedia is on record saying that they are happy to lose these subscribers in the short term if it gives them greater control and ‘ownership’ of the customer down the line. They want the ability to tailor the user experience and decide how they interact with their products, rather than relying on third-party suppliers. 


Will the bold subscription drop help them to reconvert HBO Max viewers impacted by this change? While it remains a little early to tell, we’ll be watching with great interest.

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