As its parent company WarnerMedia weighs a spinoff in combination with Discovery, its prize streaming service, HBO Max, is unveiling a new ad-supported pricing tier.
At WarnerMedia’s UpFront, the company said HBO Max With Ads will launch during the first week of June, priced at $10 per month. The platform says it will provide the “lightest ad load” in terms of comparable services. The ad-free iteration of HBO Max is priced at $15 per month.
At launch, ad products will include: Brand Block (where brands own a block of content), Pause Ads (or ads that show up when consumers take a break from streaming), and Branded Discovery (ads that appear as consumers explore HBO Max through recommended programming).
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“HBO Max With Ads provides a superior marketing environment, featuring the lightest ad load in the streaming industry, driving engagement with consumers and efficacy for our partners,” WarnerMedia’s head of advertising sales, JP Colaco, said in a statement. “Couple that with beloved premium content spanning all genres and audience segments, and we are delivering the best ad offering available in market today.”
At the same time that it announced an ad-supported tier, WarnerMedia said HBO Max’s ad-free version would be rolling out to 39 more countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in late June. Additionally, HBO-branded streaming services in Europe (the Nordics, Spain, Central Europe, and Portugal) will be upgraded to HBO Max later this year.
