Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.cbr.com
The streaming landscape is about to get less crowded. Skydance is officially beginning to merge HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single streaming service.
An investor letter released today ahead of Skydance’s Q3 earnings call confirms the company plans to debut a unified streaming offering combining HBO Max and Paramount+ in 2027. Meanwhile, the company will begin offering HBO Max and Paramount+ together as a streaming bundle in early 2027.
HBO Max and Paramount+ Get Bundled Ahead of Merger
Per Skydance, in 2027, the company will offer a “single bundle” allowing subscribers to subscribe to both HBO Max and Paramount+ “at an even greater value.” The company then states that this is the “first step toward bringing together Paramount+ and
HBO Max,”
Skydance expects HBO Max and Paramount+ to integrate by the end of the first year of the company’s post-merger existence. That’d be faster than the 18 months it took Paramount Skydance to combine the back ends of Paramount+ and Pluto TV.
“The integration of Pluto TV with Paramount+ took about 18 months,” the letter reads. “Drawing on that experience, our combined technology team, and the latest in AI tools, we expect to bring Paramount+ and HBO Max together much faster, aiming to align our backend systems within a year of closing, enabling us to quickly deliver a unified product.”
Paramount+, HBO, and HBO Max combined have 203 million aggregate subscribers worldwide. Pluto TV has around 75 million monthly users.
What Does the New Era Hold for HBO Max and Paramount+ Subscribers?
Skydance did not provide a detailed timeline for merging HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single service, nor did it answer likely questions, like whether accounts will automatically migrate to the new platform or what the new service’s subscription cost might be.
It’s also unclear what this will mean for HBO Max’s existing bundle. Currently, subscribers can get HBO with Hulu and Disney+ at a considerable discount compared to subscribing to all three separately. It’s unclear if Skydance will eventually pull HBO Max from that deal, which includes two Disney platforms, or whether the combined HBO Max-Paramount+ will replace HBO Max in the bundle.
Either way, it means saying goodbye to two major streaming platforms and replacing them with one much larger streaming platform. Is it one platform that can finally give Netflix some legitimate competition? Is that exactly what Netflix was trying to avoid when it moved to buy Warner Bros. Discovery itself, only to be blocked by David Ellison and Paramount Skydance? It may be.
Casey Bloys, who previously ran HBO and HBO Max, will oversee Skydance’s streaming operations. That puts him in charge of some of the biggest streaming television franchises, including the Game of Thrones universe, Harry Potter, DC, and now Star Trek, which is wrapping up a nine-year streaming run on Paramount+.
Bloys has said in the past that he’s a fan of bundling, which may explain Skydance packaging these two still-separate streaming platforms together. But it’s not a long-term situation, at least not if Skydance sticks to its current timeline.
