HBO Max subscribers can expect to some big-time money savings. Deadline reports that WarnerMedia is giving viewers a half-off discount on HBO Max due to HBO leaving all Amazon Prime Video Channels. Starting today through September 26, the monthly subscription cost is $7.49 for six months of HBO Max; all new and returning subscribers qualify for the savings. The decision to half the price is an attempt to reduce loss of subscribers because of the Amazon Prime departure, a plan that was decided two years ago.
However, there is some good news for Amazon users, despite the expected five million subscription loss. HBO Max, which is pretty much a fancy name for everything HBO has to offer, plus hours of additional movie and television content, can still be viewed through Amazon Fire TVs. This exception is due to the fact that Amazon Channels are still allowed to control streaming data to certain degree.
A report was given by AT&T, parent company of WarnerMedia, providing subscriber details for the first quarter of HBO and HBO Max, which launched in 2020. Both had gathered 47 million subscribers in the U.S. alone and 67.5 million globally. AT&T has since decided to report the linear and streaming numbers as one figure. However, the company’s 70-73 million global subscriber count is not expected to change because of the departure of Amazon. The company’s next quarterly report will release in October.
Previously, HBO programming was supported by channels such as Amazon, Apple, Roku and more, with the tech companies controlling the data and HBO receiving subscription revenue. But now media companies are not “inclined to surrender” data. HBO Max had a difficult launch experience in 2020 simply because Amazon Fire and Roku medias did not distribute it. This resulted in an approximate 100 million U.S. streaming viewer loss. CEO of AT&T, John Stankey, criticized tech giants control over their partner’s customer back in 2020 during a Wall Street Journal Conference, saying:
“Where the bottlenecks are sometimes occurring are in these commercial agreements. We should ask ourselves, is that friction somebody really feeling their oats and maybe having market power above and beyond what’s reasonable for innovation?”