Discovery is in the final stages of acquiring Warner Media from AT&T. So, what does that mean? One thing that will come out of the deal is that eventually, Discovery+ and HBO Max will be combining into one massive service.
Gunnar Wiedenfels, the chief financial officer of Discovery had this to say to Variety.
“So right out of the gate, we’re working on getting the bundling approach ready, maybe a single sign-on, ingesting content into the other product, etc., so that we can start to get some benefits early on. But the main thrust is going to be harmonizing the technology platform. Building one very, very strong combined direct-to-consumer product and platform, that’s going to take a while.”
HBO Max already hosts several channels on its service including TCM, DC, Adult Swim, and others. It would be fairly simple for HBO to just add more sections for Discovery properties such as the Travel Channel, HGTV, and the other 80 plus channels that feature everything from cooking shows to a horde of paranormal series.
There is no word yet when the merger will take place, we do know that it will likely be formatted like Hulu and Disney+’s deal. Weidenfels also revealed that there will be two tiers for the service, one with advertisements and one without.