Returning the ‘HBO’ to Max Is Latest Sign of Potential WBD Split

For two years, we were fed a steady stream of why Warner Bros. Discovery dropped the “HBO” from HBO Max. The short version: it was too limiting, Max is the streaming home to more than just prestige TV, etc, etc. Well, now HBO Max is back — albeit in an improved app — and the rebranding (debranding?) of the rebrand is likely the latest sign of a potential division of WBD assets.

On May 8, after Warner Bros. Discovery reported its March-quarter earnings, CNBC’s David Faber had a report of his own: WBD is “moving towards…a split.”

“It’s become relatively clear to me from the many conversations that I’ve had that we could get some sort of an announcement in the not-too-distant future that they are planning to try to split the company,” Faber said.

Warner Bros. Discovery did not respond to The Hollywood Reporter’s request for comment on the Faber report.

The only split that makes sense for Warner Bros. Discovery, which was just formed in April 2022 as the combination of WarnerMedia (under AT&T) and Discovery, Inc., would be to pair the WB studios with Max and spin the Discovery linear cable channels off into a new company. Faber’s reporting concurs, but we can also just source our intuition and logic on this one. A WBD split-and-spin would not come without hurdles: like the fact that (HBO) Max also houses most of the same programming that populates Discovery+. How do you rectify that problem? You reattach Max to the HBO brand and remove the Discovery stuff later.

We’re not quite there yet, but it sure feels imminent.

Thirty minutes into Wednesday’s Warner Bros. Discovery upfront, HBO chief Casey Bloys declared HBO Max is back. The absurdity of it all was met with laughter, light applause and exactly one whistle. It felt like the advertisers in the Madison Square Garden theater were laughing at Max, and not with it. (Later in the show, the announcement of new Shark Week programming Dancing with Sharks, hosted by ousted Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron, got a similar “are-you-kidding-me?” kind of laughter.) Bloys did follow with a solid joke: “I know you’re all shocked, but the good news is I have a drawer full of stationary from the last time around.”

Good one.

Bloys has to be happy with the development. Though he oversees both the HBO and Max brands, a re-elevation of HBO is a further endorsement of Bloys.

The onstage self-deprecation continued when HBO Max Chief Marketing Officer Shauna Spenley displayed the three Spider-men pointing meme on the big screen behind her, replacing the Marvel Spideys with DC Supermen and overlaying the logos of Max, HBO Max and the old SVOD service HBO Go, which (first) beget the (first) HBO Max. The press release got in on the joke with a meme of its own: Ross (David Schwimmer) from Friends, in bed between the Max and HBO logos, shouting, “We were on a break!”

HBO Max first launched in 2020; it was a buggy user experience, so the Max platform was built from scratch for a 2023 launch. This summer that new platform stays but the name reverts.

Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav came into this whole WBD endeavor as the Discovery, Inc. chief, but he’s spent the past few years aligning himself with the Warner Bros. side. Zaslav literally ordered Jack Warner’s desk out of storage; he now rules the iconic Warners lot from behind it.

Zaslav is one split away from fully turning his former position atop a withering bundle of cable channels into the man exclusively in charge of HBO and Warner Bros., two giant brands in Hollywood history — and its present. The looming question: What to do with that $35 billion in remaining debt as created by the literal creation of Warner Bros. Discovery? We don’t have that answer, yet, but it’d sure be nice to bury billions with a Discovery SpinCo.

Speaking of a SpinCo., Zaslav is watching the very blueprint unfold in front of him as NBCUniversal spins out its own cable channels into a company now called Versant. Basically, NBCU (owned by Comcast), is keeping its studios, its streamer Peacock, the NBC broadcast channel and Bravo. The rest goes on the junk pile to SpinCo. Versant.

The former NBCUniversal president, Jeff Shell, is keeping a close eye on the happs as well: Shell will be president of Skydance Paramount (our guess at a name, but names are getting real dumb) when that merger goes through — it’s expected to happen by this summer. Paramount Global has a bunch of bad linear cable channels as well, a result of the re-merging of Viacom and CBS in 2019, which became Paramount Global in 2022. Shell and David Ellison could CBS, Paramount Pictures and maybe Paramount+, and spin the rest of their troubles away.

And hey, maybe Versant will buy all of their leftovers.