Natalie Jarvey for The Hollywood Reporter:
During a Tuesday afternoon presentation at Stage 21 on Warner Bros. Studios’ historic Burbank lot, the company [WarnerMedia] that owns the storied Hollywood studio as well as television networks HBO, TBS/TNT and CNN revealed that forthcoming streaming service HBO Max will bow in May 2020 and cost $15 per month, the same price as HBO but with significantly more TV shows and movies.
HBO Max will be filled with 10,000 hours of programming from across the media conglomerate’s divisions including TV hits like Friends, Big Bang Theory and South Park, Warner Bros. films like The Joker, the full HBO catalog and originals like previously announced Ansel Elgort drama Tokyo Vice, a Grease spinoff and a Gossip Girl sequel.
The competition for subscribers will be fierce. More than 158 million people worldwide already subscribe to Netflix and 28 million people in the U.S. pay for Hulu. Now, over the next six months, services from Apple, Disney and NBCU will also hit the market, testing just how much consumers will be willing to spend for new streaming services.
Even with a deep bench of new and classic programming, HBO Max’s price makes it one of the more expensive streamers on the market. On the low end is the $5-per-month Apple TV+ and on the high end is Netflix’s $16-per-month Premium tier.
MacDailyNews Take: Many people could be very happy with subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV+, and nothing else (and have available more than they could ever hope to be able to watch).
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]