Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, David Zaslav, continues to surprise with new reforms in the streaming industry. This year, he has facilitated the transformation of HBO Max, the platform housing the company’s original content, into Max: a new streaming service that will add great gems to its catalog and offer new series such as “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” or the Harry Potter remake.
However, this is not the only surprise that Zaslav has in store for us this year. HBO has reached a unique agreement with Netflix that forever changes our perception of the streaming wars. As reported by Screen Rant, Warner Bros. Discovery will sell some of its classic licenses to Netflix, allowing the VOD service to stream HBO content. This means that we will be able to watch HBO shows on Netflix.
Does the war end?
The agreement, apparently, has not been finalized yet, but it is nearing completion and will be made official shortly. If this happens, it will be the first time in nearly a decade that an HBO program will be available on a platform considered as direct competition. However, it is not the first time they have parted with part of their catalog.
One of Zaslav’s most controversial decisions was to remove Westworld from their catalog and move it to free streaming services in the US such as Roku and Tubi. And previously, series like The Sopranos also had a life outside of HBO.
Obviously, this would not apply to HBO’s new releases, but rather to some classic series that will be available on both the Max and Netflix catalogs, allowing both platforms to benefit from it and continue leading the platform war… albeit in different ways.
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