Max Now Has Its Sights Set on Turkey as Part of Growing Expansion Plans

 Max has made no secret that it’s pushing to grow its streaming arm’s relevance and subscription numbers with an ambitious new rollout. While the focus to date has mostly been on Southeast Asian markets, they’ve now got their eye on a 77th new territory. To tell us more, we have Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A.

 


                                                                        Brandon Blake

Turkey Marks the Next Big Expansion

Warner Bros. Discovery has taken a slightly different approach to its next expansion. In late 2023, they bought out local Turkish streamer BluTV. Now, they will be shuttering that service in favor of an “evolution” to Max’s global streaming platform. It appears they will be keeping much of BluTV’s locally-focused content to kick start the change, too.

 

To date, Max has just short of 117M subscribers globally. Just short of 6.5M of these were added in the final quarter of 2024, mostly from their new territories.

Integration Ahead for BluTV

From WBD’s promotional activity around the impending launch, which is set for April 15, BluTV’s existing local content will be a clear drawcard for the new Max service, with them already shifting popular shows like Magarsus directly onto the expanded platform. They will mostly flesh out these offerings with global content from Max’s existing new shows and library.

 

BluTV also has an existing relationship with Hepsiburada, a Turkish e-commerce brand. They have confirmed that existing Hepsiburada Premium members will be moved over to the new Max service as part of the switch.

 

As streaming fights to fully establish itself as the go-to way for people to watch their series and movies at home, we’ve seen a lot of different strategies put to work. From Disney’s new focus on bundling and Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown to further territorial expansions, as Max is focusing on, the fight for relevance and new subscribers looks set to heat up considerably in 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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