HBO Max, now under the newly created Warner Bros. Discovery, will be part of Verizon‘s upcoming +Play streaming-aggregation platform.
Scheduled to launch commercially later in 2022, Verizon +Play is designed to let the telco’s customers discover, purchase and manage subscriptions across entertainment, audio, gaming, fitness, music and lifestyle.
HBO Max will join the roster of previously announced +Play partners, which include Netflix, Peloton, A+E Networks (Lifetime Movie Club, History Vault, and A&E Crime Central), Duolingo, TelevisaUnivision’s Vix Plus, and Live Nation’s Veeps livestreaming concert service. In addition, Verizon +Play will let customers purchase and manage accounts for Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, Discovery+ and AMC+ — services that Verizon already offers to eligible customers for no extra cost (for varying periods of time).
Under the deal, Verizon customers will be able to purchase HBO Max and other services directly through +Play. Verizon has structured the distribution deals to take a per-subscriber revenue share.
“As one of the largest direct-to-consumer distributors in the United States, we have a track record of providing millions of our customers with great premium content from leading services, and our partnership with HBO Max will build on that trend while speaking directly to customer pain points, like managing multiple subscriptions all in one place,” Erin McPherson, chief content officer for Verizon Consumer Group, said in a prepared statement.
At some point, Warner Bros. Discovery expects to merge HBO Max and Discovery+ into a unified service offering. The company was created earlier this month through the combination of WarnerMedia (spun off from AT&T) and Discovery.
