HBO Max dropped the HBO, became Max, then took its old name back
In 2023 Warner Bros. Discovery decided its streaming service would be called simply Max, burying one of television's most famous brands. Two years later it reversed course, and the HBO returned. The on-off naming saga caps a short, eventful history for a platform that now has more than 140 million paying members.
The service grew out of a plan announced by WarnerMedia on 10 October 2018 for a streaming platform built from its entertainment brands, originally intended to come in three tiers. The following spring AT&T's chief executive Randall Stephenson said it would carry the HBO name and link to cable operators. It finally launched in the United States on 27 May 2020 as HBO Max, replacing both HBO Now and the HBO Go app, with existing subscribers moved across at no extra cost. It also absorbed the streaming side of DC Universe, and its expansion abroad began in 2021.
Growth came quickly. AT&T reported that HBO and HBO Max together had 69.4 million paying subscribers at the end of June 2021, including 43.5 million HBO Max customers in America, rising to 73.8 million by the end of that year and 76.8 million by the close of the first quarter of 2022.
That April WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to create Warner Bros. Discovery. The new company first planned to fold Discovery+ into HBO Max in 2023 but kept both, instead launching a rebranded service called Max on 23 May 2023 in the United States, with a redesigned interface and more Discovery programming. Latin America and the Caribbean followed in February 2024 and Europe that May, although Belgium and the Netherlands kept the HBO Max name with the new logo. On 14 May 2025 the company said the HBO branding would come back, and the service reverted on 9 July 2025.
The library now spans Warner Bros., HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Eurosport and more, alongside Max Originals and co-productions with partners such as BBC Studios and Sesame Workshop. It ranks fifth among subscription streaming services worldwide.
Source: HBO Max
