People who subscribe to HBO through AT&T will get HBO Max for free

HBO Max is the most poorly named of the upcoming streaming services, and the one arriving at the party the latest. There’s also still a lot of unanswered questions about it: exactly how much will it cost, and does it herald the end of HBO Go and HBO Now? We’re still unclear on the specifics, but at least we know know that several million people will get it for free.

Speaking to Reuters, WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey revealed that AT&T customers who subscribe to HBO will be getting HBO Max free of charge when it launches…sometime in 2020, probably. He also hinted that the company may bundling HBO Max with AT&T wireless subscriptions.

How much exactly will the service cost the rest of us? The jury is still out on that one.

As for the HBO Go and Now of it all, it sounds like they’ll be folded into HBO Max, or least that’s how I’m reading this line from Reuters: “Stankey wants to convert HBO’s 35 million U.S. subscriber base, which includes the 10 million customers AT&T controls, to HBO Max.” But again, we’re not sure.

Really, leveraging HBO’s deep well of quality seems like the only way HBO Max can hope to compete with the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and the rest. “This is not Netflix, this is not Disney… It’s going to have a very unique position in the marketplace,” said AT&T CEO and chairman Randall Stephenson said on the earnings call, according to Variety. How exactly will it be different? Tell me if you’ve heard this one: we don’t exactly know. AT&T’s general plan seems to be to situate HBO Max as the “premium” alternative to a more general-purpose outlet like Netflix, which Stephenson likened to Walmart in 2018.

We’ll see if that works out for them. The service does have some good content going in. HBO Max will be the only place to stream popular shows like Friends and The Big Bang Theory, which is definitely a draw. They’ve also won the rights to stream the wonderful Studio Ghibli films. On the children’s side, the service will feature episodes of Sesame Street, while adults can take it sophisticated series like Circe, an adaptation of Madeline Miller’s best-selling novel about Greek mythology.

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You add HBO’s catalog to this, and the lineup isn’t bad; it’s just not clear if it’s good enough to overcome some stiff competition. AT&T has a lot of debt and its hands and needs HBO Max to be a success. Tomorrow, Stankey and others will talk to investors, where we’ll hopefully learn more details about the service.

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h/t The A.V. Club