HBO falls victim to Disney+, forcing Max rebrand to reclaim lost kids

Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) held a press conference this week to discuss its upcoming enhanced direct-to-consumer streaming product. As expected, the merger of the studio giant’s two streaming properties, HBO Max and Discovery+, will transition to Max in the US market from May 23. This underwhelming unveiling was then proceeded by WBD executives spending more time reassuring attendees about the legacy of the HBO brand than on the future of Max as a competitive streaming platform. But first, the reason for dropping HBO from HBO Max is a simple one – because Disney+ has pillaged WBD’s share of the under-11s demographic. WBD executives did not explicitly call out Disney+ by name during the presentation, but these are not difficult dots…