HBO Max’s Ad-Supported Tier Will Debut in Early June at $9.99 a Month

Author: Kelsey Sutton. Source: AdWeek

The ad-supported tier of WarnerMedia streamer HBO Max finally has a price point and a launch week.

HBO Max with Ads will cost $9.99 a month, $5 less than the company’s year-old ad-free tier, which is available for $14.99 a month, the company said today during its upfront presentation Wednesday morning.

That ad-supported tier—inventory has already been sold to most major agency holding companies and brands across all major verticals and categories—will roll out the first week of June, almost a year to date from HBO Max’s debut on May 27, 2020.

It will feature the “lightest ad load among ad-supported streamers,” the company said Wednesday, although it did not note how many minutes of advertising will run per hour on the platform. (That claim has become a favorite among media companies including both NBCUniversal streamer Peacock and Discovery’s Discovery+, which each offer ad loads of about five minutes per hour of programming.)

The tier has been an anticipated addition to the ad-supported streaming landscape and gives WarnerMedia—which on Monday said it would merge with Discovery to combine its media and streaming assets—another way to court advertisers that are in some cases looking to shift some of their marketing budgets over to streaming.

HBO Max’s ad formats

“We are investing to win and enabling each and every one of you to win as well,” Tony Goncalves, WarnerMedia’s evp and chief revenue officer, told advertisers Wednesday.

When it debuts, HBO Max’s ad-supported tier will feature brand blocks, in which an advertiser takes over a block of content that consumers can watch with limited commercials. Other formats arriving soon on the platform include pause ads, which appear when consumers pause programming, and an offering called branded discovery, where a brand takes over recommended programming as users search for new content to watch.

The roll-out comes just as HBO Max will get an infusion of new programming this summer, including reboot of the CW teen drama Gossip Girl, debuting in July. The highly anticipated Friends reunion special will premiere on the service May 27, the company previously announced, just a week ahead of the ad-supported tier’s debut.

Today, WarnerMedia executives showed advertisers a sneak peek of the reunion, which was originally slated to air when HBO Max first launched a year ago but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The rest of WarnerMedia’s presentation detailed new programming coming to cable networks like TNT, TBS and truTV—dubbed the TNets by the networks’ general manager Brett Weitz and other execs—as well as CNN and Adult Swim. But the presentation, recorded more than a week prior to Monday’s bombshell news of WarnerMedia and Discovery’s merger, left more questions than answers about the future of the company—and its execs.

The pandemic-delayed special will debut May 27 on the WarnerMedia streamer. HBO Max to Release Friends Reunion a Year Later Than Planned.

Jason Kilar, the CEO of WarnerMedia who took over only a year ago, thanked marketers for their continued partnership in a video added to the start of the presentation, referring to “important news made by both our company AT&T and Discovery on Monday.” But his appearance throughout the rest of the event—during which he touted the company’s domination in live sports, HBO Max’s momentum and even appeared in a bit with Conan O’Brien at its conclusion—was a near-constant reminder of his uncertain future at the soon-to-be combined company, which Discovery CEO David Zaslav will lead. (Kilar is reportedly already negotiating his exit.)

It was reminiscent of Discovery’s own upfront Tuesday morning, in which Zaslav addressed the news in a separate segment ahead of the company’s own prerecorded presentation.

WarnerMedia’s ad sales team, which tapped talent like Leslie Odom Jr., Issa Rae, Daveed Diggs and Tuca and Bertie’s Ali Wong and Tiffany Haddish to tout upcoming programming highlights, underscored the company’s linear, digital and streaming reach. They added that the company’s breakthrough programming—much of which is building off of the company’s owned franchises, including DC Comics and Harry Potter—allows for big audiences that can deliver big impact for advertisers.

But the company also acknowledged that the industry was changing fast.

“Today, primetime is any time spent with your favorite content, whether it’s Rick & Morty, Impractical Jokers, Claws or Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy,” JP Colaco, WarnerMedia’s head of advertising sales, said. “If the 1950s were the golden age of TV, then in 2021 we find ourselves in the platinum age—one where we can connect the right content to the right consumer at the right time. That’s why we believe IP is the new primetime.”