The HBO Max brand will cease to exist in Spain. On May 21, subscribers to the platform will find an update to the service that will have another name: simply Max.
The lost acronym of HBO, which refers to the American television channel that has produced series such as The Sopranos, Sex and the City, True Blood or Game of Thrones, landed on the Iberian Peninsula in November 2016 under the name HBO Spain, a streaming platform that sought to rival Netflix.
In October 2021 it was renamed HBO Max due to the merger of Warner Bros and Discovery: the directors believed that Max would help popularize the service and convey to the viewer that there was more than adult series there. And, now in 2024, it has been considered necessary to discard the prestige of the HBO acronym to position itself with Max as a container for all types of entertainment.
Max is sold as a platform that will have “the must-see titles of HBO Max, the engaging entertainment of Discovery and the global events of Eurosport’s premium subscription service to create a complete viewing experience for the whole family.” This includes, for example, the Olympic Games that will be held in Paris between the end of July and mid-August.
From Warner Bros Discovery they trust that the arrival of the second season of The House of the Dragon on June 17, a month after the relaunch, will help consolidate the brand, in addition to the promise of bringing “more than double the amount of content currently available on HBO Max.” Among the most anticipated new series are The Penguin, the spin-off of The Batman, and Welcome to Derry, which will serve as a prequel to Stephen King’s It films, although they still do not have a release date.
Special importance will be given, in fact, to sports with the Australian Open and Roland Garros in tennis, the Giro d’Italia, the Vuelta de España and the Tour de France in cycling, the 24 hours of Les Mans, among others. world championships and winter sports world cups. They warn, however, that in each country this offer will be different and that, for example, in Spain they will have exclusive rights to UFC, the mixed martial arts event.
In this drift more focused on all types of entertainment, the inclusion of a selection of live linear channels such as Eurosport, and different subscription modalities, stands out. There will be the standard plan; which involves two devices simultaneously, high definition and up to 30 downloads to watch offline; and the premium, which includes up to four devices, Dolby Atmos sound and up to 100 downloads, and a better consumer experience.
There will be the possibility of contracting the sports complement, although the rights to sporting events change depending on the country; and, while it will not be available at launch, a basic plan with ads is expected to arrive later, following in the footsteps of other rival services such as Netflix, Disney, Prime Video or SkyShowtime.
Existing HBO Max subscribers will be able to discover the new experience on Max by maintaining their current profiles and viewing history, while continuing their Max journey where they left off. In some cases, depending on the device or operating system, the HBO Max app will automatically update to the Max app.
In other cases, when users open their HBO Max app, they will be prompted to download the new Max app, allowing them to start exploring the new platform with just a few clicks.
