"HBO Max returns to Amazon's Prime Video Channels" by Umar Shakir

jaydiaz2013

Dec 7

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Good news for those who hate switching apps on their TVs: HBO is making a return to Amazon's Prime Video Channels in the US. Customers who subscribe to Prime Video can add HBO Max for $14.99 per month and get access to all the Warner Bros. Discovery content like House of the Dragon in the same place they watch The Boys.

Both Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery were reportedly in talks this summer to get their relationship rolling again. In 2020, WarnerMedia, the former AT&T-owned iteration of HBO's parent company, launched the standalone HBO Max service that eventually replaced the previous HBO Go and Now streaming-only services. When Max went live, HBO began its attempt to transition to its new sovereign platform by removing its service from Apple TV Channels, and it wasn't available on Amazon's Channels, either.

But with a new service comes the negotiations, and WarnerMedia stayed at that table for a while, resulting in the new HBO Max app not being available for months on Amazon devices like the Fire TV and even Roku devices. Meanwhile, the HBO Now service continued to run on Amazon's platform, though the service fragmentation was extremely confusing at the time.

Eventually the two made up and the HBO Max app was available on Amazon devices again, but part of the agreement meant Amazon users would no longer be able to subscribe to HBO through Prime Video Channels. A year later, in 2021, the move contributed to HBO losing 1.8 million subscribers in the US in the second quarter of that year.

But in 2022, harmony is restored. Now, you can watch HBO content and subscribe to HBO Max through multiple platforms — not surprising given new CEO David Zaslav's desire to make money fast. Warner Bros. Discovery might also be making more changes soon, like dropping the "HBO" moniker and naming the service to just be "Max." Whatever it decides to do, at least you can now watch shows outside of an app that seems to still get pretty buggy.

source https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/6/23496115/hbo-max-amazon-prime-video-channels-returns

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