HBO CEO Admits Max Messed Up With Low-Quality Reality Shows from Discovery

Nearly two years ago, HBO Max became Max. The name change was trumpeted in a bizarre presentation where the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav declared his streamer would be “the place every member of the household can go to see exactly what they want at any given time.” Today, Max is telling some members of the household to get lost.

Casey Bloys is the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content. In a two-part interview on “The Town” podcast, Bloys shared more about Max’s recent strategy change. “We did an assessment of what subscribers were watching, did a lot of research (and) focus groups of what they were watching, what they said they came to us for, what potential subscribers wanted and expected from us,” Bloys said. “The things that subscribers value and want from us are HBO programming, scripted dramas, comedies, documentaries, the Pay-One movies, library movies, and the Warner Bros. TV library, and Max’s original scripted dramas and scripted comedies, and documentaries.”

The content Bloys didn’t mention was the reality TV slop from Discovery and TLC. Notably, Bloys was working on the HBO side of things long before AT&T dumped HBO and Warner Bros. in the clumsy hands of then-Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

Zaslav clearly believed the TV equivalent of Velveeta would fit in nicely with the gourmet cheese board of HBO’s library. After two years and endless focus groups, Zaslav has discovered the truth.

“The idea was to increase time spent with less expensive Discovery content,” Bloys said. “But as we just talked about, not as many people engaged with that as we had thought.”

Bloys said Max subscribers did watch true crime shows and shows like “Quiet on Set.” But viewers rejected the library of “food” and “home” content. You’ll see less of that on Max now.

As noted in a recent Wall Street Journal article, Max has given up competing with the big tents of Netflix and Prime Video. It’s also surrendering in the race for kids, letting Netflix and Disney+ capture that market.

So what’s left for Max? It seems the streamer is narrowing its focus, sticking with the HBO content that made it great in the first place. “We’re not fighting for the more-is-better game,” CEO and president of global streaming JB Perrette told the Journal. “We’ll let others deal with the volume.”

Unfortunately, a slimmed-down Max doesn’t come with a lower price. Today’s ad-free Max is $1 more than it was during the 2023 rebrand. Although ad-free subscribers now have access to live sports, Max only has a few days left before it loses the NBA for at least the next 11 years.

While I love the HBO-level quality shows on Max, its release schedule is my biggest frustration. Many of its prestige titles take 2-3 years between seasons, so we’re paying $16.99/month for a handful of shows each year. I’m signed up now to see “The Last of Us” and “The Rehearsal,” but I’ll drop it again when those shows wrap up. I’ll be back when the next great show returns. But to justify an annual subscription, Max needs to create more shows worth watching.