HBO Max and Discovery Plus serve two completely different audiences: one craving prestige TV like Succession and the other demanding cheap reality sludge like 90 Day Fiance. The two don’t really blend, but thanks to the impending off-load of Warner Bros by AT&T into Discovery, they’re going to have to find a way to get along.
Variety reported today that the current plan is to merge both streaming services into one service. Why not a bundle instead? Because some suit doesn’t want a bundle, that’s why. “One of the most important items here is that we believe in a combined product as opposed to a bundle,” Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels is quoted as saying. “We believe that the breadth and depth of this content offering is going to be a phenomenal consumer value proposition.” He’s on the Discovery side, so he would say that.
The most crucial thing here is the price — it...