By With the absolute glut of streaming services available now, it’s only a matter of time until the bubble bursts. It’s going to happen. All of these streaming services can’t coexist with each other and eventually they’re going to start shutting down when the costs of maintaining all of these little fiefdoms becomes too much for corporations and consumers to bear. For the moment though, the war rages on, and a new combatant is ready to enter the ring. Warner Media and AT&T have finally drawn back the curtains on when users can purchase access to their streaming service, HBO Max.
The service will become available on May 27 and charge $14.99 a month to let users stream thousands upon thousands of hours of content from them. You’re obviously going to be getting HBO in the bundle, but you’ll also be getting a surprising number of other channels CNN, TNT, Cartoon Network, and Crunchyroll thanks to Warner Media and AT&T being all cozy with each other. For people with no sense of taste, HBO Max will be the exclusive home of Friends and Big Bang Theory among other, better shows. Like Doom Patrol! Do yourself a favor and actually watch that show when you get HBO Max so that you can get all caught up for the second season, which will also premiere on HBO Max sometime in 2020. God that show is wonderful.
While other companies have pretty niche offerings like CBS All Access that seems to be supported solely by Star Trek, HBO Max actually has a pretty compelling catalog of titles. They come from several different networks with a variety of genres to boot. Unlike with other streaming services, it looks like HBO Max will consolidate several of these previous platforms into an ultra one for continued usage.
I know it’s way too soon to tell, but I would actually lay claim that HBO Max’s output looks to be far more compelling than anything Disney+ has to offer. Sure, I can watch the MCU titles on there, have access to all of The Simpsons, and keep up to date on The Mandalorian, but HBO Max’s content looks to be gargantuan in comparison to Disney’s streaming service. My questions now turn to what will be available on the platform at launch. Sure, we know what can be on there come May 27, but what will be on there is an entirely different story. We know that the Friends reunion special won’t be there on release day, but will anything else be affected? Warner Media wants to put out dozens of original shows in 2020, but will that even be possible in light of the recent pandemic?
HBO Max launches May 27, 2020.
HBO Max Sets Official Launch Day – [Variety]
