What HBO Max and Paramount+ merger means for subscribers’ favorite shows

One streaming service to rule them all? 

Not quite, but David Ellison’s plan to smash HBO Max and Paramount+ into one offering will make Paramount-Warner Bros. (WarnerMount? ParaBros?) a more formidable competitor to Netflix, YouTube and Disney+ if — and it’s a big if — they can figure out how to manage the overlap.

“The combination of the two gives them a seat at the table,” Naveen Sarma, managing director of S&P Global Ratings and a longtime media industry analyst, tells Page Six Hollywood. “It doesn’t put them in the YouTube category, but it certainly puts them in the same conversation with Disney or Netflix.”

During a call with analysts on Monday when he first revealed his plan to combine the two streamers, the Paramount CEO boasted that the combined entity would have more than 200 million subscribers globally — 210.5 million to be exact at the end of 2025, with WBD (which includes Discovery+ and HBO TV subs in its count) accounting for nearly two-thirds of that figure. 

“It’s roughly the size of Disney, right? Obviously, competitive with Amazon, competitive with Netflix,” Ellison said. “That really positions us to be one of the leading competitors.”

Ellison is technically correct. However, when you account for the crossover of customers who currently subscribe to both, those figures start to look highly inflated. According to data firm Antenna, around 7.6 million subscribers in the U.S. have both, which represent around a quarter of each’s U.S. subscriber base. 

Regardless, a combined streaming service should be at the big kids table, something both platforms have struggled to do.

“It solves, at some level, the problem that I think the Discovery guys were trying to solve,” says Alan Wolk, co-founder of TVREV, a research and consulting firm that helps TV networks navigate streaming. (Wolk was referencing the ill-fitting combination of Discovery content with HBO Max and the short-lived “Max” era.) 

One of the problems with the original HBO Max, according to Wolk, was getting customers who weren’t hardcore fans of HBO’s prestige programming to subscribe. But Wolk argues that Paramount’s IP, which includes “Mission Impossible,” “Top Gun” and “Yellowstone,” better compliment “Game of Thrones” and “Harry Potter” than, say, old episodes of “House Hunters.” (Fear not “House Hunters” fans. That show will also likely be available as Paramount is buying the Discovery portion as well.) 

“The thing a lot of people are sleeping on is it’s not just CBS. It’s Viacom and MTV and all these things, which could, especially in reruns, appeal to different generations,” Wolk says.

For his part, Ellison said Monday, “Our viewpoint is HBO should stay HBO. By bringing the platforms together, all of our content will be able to reach even a broader audience than we can do stand-alone.”

What he didn’t address was the org chart.

Casey Bloys is chairman and CEO of content for HBO and HBO Max, while Cindy Holland is chair of Paramount’s direct-to-consumer business, which includes Paramount+ and its free PlutoTV. Holland was among Ellison’s big splashy hires when he took over Paramount last year. The overlap between the two talented execs, both of whom can take credit for helping usher in the era of prestige television, could get awkward. (It’s worth noting that Holland’s mandate at Paramount differs from her tenure at Netflix, when she built their original content business from the ground up.) The two are said to have similar sensibilities and have gone head-to-head on projects. The biggest example of that is “House of Cards,” which Netflix famously outbid HBO to win. 

Adding even more intrigue, Bloys’ current contract is set to expire sometime in the middle of next year. But he did get a shout out from Ellison, even if the 43-year old played his cards close to the vest. “While we won’t get into any personnel conversations,” he said “I hope, understandably, Casey and his team do an absolutely remarkable job at HBO.”