WBD CFO on Switch Back to HBO Max: 25% of Viewership is HBO Content
May 16, 2025
The surprise return to HBO Max branding, two years after the streamer dropped the HBO name for Max, was done in part due to subscriber viewing trends, according to Gunnar Wiedenfels, CFO of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Speaking at the MofafettNathanson 2025 Media, Internet & Communications Conference in New York, Wiedenfels said the rebranding never meant the media company had abandoned the HBO brand.
“What’s always been a big differentiator is that HBO has always stood for quality,” Wiedenfels said.
The executive said that when the former WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to create Warner Bros. Discovery, management’s mindset was that the “HBO Max” brand was limiting to consumers, while the standalone Max brand was easier to accept.
Then came the data that 25% of Max content being consumed was HBO-based, according to Wiedenfels.
Indeed, top HBO content streaming on Max includes “The Last of Us,” “The White Lotus,” “Hacks,” new release “The Righteous Gemstones,” “The Penguin,” “House of the Dragon,” “True Detective” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” among others.
“What really differentiates us or really swings the needle when it comes to the positioning is quality,” he said. “It’s the [HBO] content that we can produce in a way that nobody else can.”
Specifically, Wiedenfels said WBD realized that HBO content was generating incrementally higher return-on-investment than other content.
“As we’re sitting together in these business reviews, and talked about how the market has spoken here and quality is the real differentiator, that’s when [CEO] David [Zaslav] said, ‘Look, we’ve got the brand that stands for content quality like no other brand.’ That’s how that change was made.”
Combining Max, HBO and Discovery continues to be key to generating DTC operational scale, fiscal leverage and profitability, he said. The business unit reported operating income of $409 million in the last three months of 2024, up from a $55 million loss in 2023.
The unit reported 122.3 million streaming subs worldwide through March 31, with plans to reach 150 million by 2026.
Wiedenfels said he believes the new HBO Max will also be a boon to advertisers as the platform generates greater scale, reach through an increased ad-supported subscriber base.
“We’ll have better monetization opportunities, and that is both when it comes to the inventory and when it comes to pricing,” he said.
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