Effective immediately, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) is implementing the first price hike on its ad-free HBO Max platform in the US since the service launched nearly three years ago.
The monthly cost for HBO Max, which launched in May 2020, has gone up from $14.99 to $15.99 and will show up in the February billing cycle.
The announcement comes as HBO Max is expected to combine with Discovery+ as a single platform in spring.
A statement from HBO Max said, “This price increase of one dollar will allow us to continue to invest in providing even more culture-defining programming and improving our customer experience for all users.”
WBD head David Zaslav is looking to find $3.5bn in cost savings slnce the Discovery-WarnerMedia merger last year.
Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels have made redundancies across the company, implemented strategic tax moves by dropping projects such as Batgirl, and begun licensing content to third-party, free ad-supported streamers (FAST).
HBO Max cancelled the second season of comedy show Minx, which has just been picked up by STARZ.
The executives have also gutted the HBO acquisitions team as Zaslav focuses on original content. The CEO has also stated his belief in theatrical distribution for what his team considers to be the right projects. On that note, Zaslav recently appointed James Gunn and Peter Safran to head up the newly anointed DC Studios.
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