HBO Max is an American subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service which is the property of parent-subsidiary WarnerMedia Direct, LLC, a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Global Streaming & Interactive Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and their related brands. The service also carries first-run programming from the HBO pay television service, original programming under the "Max Originals" banner, and content acquired via third-party library deals (such as those with film studios for pay television rights) and co-production agreements (such as those with BBC Studios and Sesame Workshop among others). The service succeeds both HBO Now—a previous HBO SVOD service, and HBO Go—the on-demand streaming platform for HBO pay television subscribers. In the U.S., HBO Now subscribers and HBO pay television subscribers were migrated to HBO Max at no additional charge, subject to availability and device support. HBO Max also supplanted the streaming component of DC Entertainment's DC Universe service, with its original series being migrated to HBO Max as Max Originals. The HBO Max service began to expand into international markets in 2021. According to AT&T, HBO, and HBO Max had a combined total of 69.4 million paying subscribers globally on June 30, 2021, including 43.5 million HBO Max subscribers in the U.S., 3.5 million HBO-only U.S. subscribers (primarily commercial customers like hotels), and 20.5 million subscribers to either HBO Max or HBO by itself in other countries. By the end of 2021, HBO and HBO Max had a combined total of 73.8 million paying global subscribers. At the end of Q1 2022, HBO and HBO Max had 76.8 million global subscribers. Since the April 2022 merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery, Inc. to form Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO Max is one of the combined company's two flagship streaming services, the other being Discovery+ (which primarily focuses on factual programming from the Discovery brands). A relaunch of the service incorporating Discovery content is expected to be unveiled on April 12, 2023; while WBD originally intended the relaunched service to subsume and replace Discovery+, CEO David Zaslav later revealed that the company no longer planned to do so.
