HBO Max’s launch is a failure. They’re already reshuffling things around with the announced end of HBO Now. Why is it failing an what can they do? It’s easy; see below for the plan. The content they have available to them is arguably the best of any service available, so all they have to do is do it right. Doing things right seems to be a tall task for AT&T, as they seem to always have their heads so far up their asses when it comes to this stuff, so my hopes aren’t high.
ROKU AND AMAZON
Over 80 million people use one of these services. If I had to guess, I would bet that at least 75% of streamers have one of these services exclusively on their TV. That means, like myself, HBO Max isn’t even a possibility for many people that may want it. Stop being greedy and make a deal. Every other streaming service has figured this out, why can’t AT&T? This is the #1 reason of the failure to launch and everything else is just gravy.
Too Many Services
AT&T has AT&T Now, AT&T WatchTV, HBO Now, HBO Go, HBO Max, and DC Universe. Jesus Christ, what the hell?! Yes, they finally decided to do something with the Now and Go stuff, but this should’ve ended on launch.
DC Universe
This needs to go. Now. As I’ve said many times in the past, the “one place for all things DC” was a wonderful idea, but it was never that. At no point was this ever one place you could find all DC content. AT&T greed and poor planning ruined that. DC Universe should rebrand itself as DC Comics, lower their price to $4.99 a month, and just copy Marvel’s comic subscription premise. All the movie and TV stuff should then just move to HBO Max.
Once this is done, all non-comic DC properties could actually live in one section of HBO Max. They would then have to do the following: get back the rights to all their movies, cut deals, let deals naturally expire, whatever. Marvel was able to cut deals to get back much of their stuff in the middle of contracts, and AT&T should be able to do the same. This won’t work for everything, but it will get back some stuff. The rest, they simply let the contracts end naturally and not make new ones. The other important thing would be to do whatever they need to do to get the Arrowverse into this. No new contracts with Netflix, and figure out a way to have these episodes stream within 24 hours of their airing on CW. Figure this out, no matter the cost.
Home Page
Since I have a Roku and couldn’t buy HBO Max even if I wanted to, I have no idea what their home page looks like. I have read that it’s “confusing” though, so that’s what I’m doing here. Click on the HBO Max app, and you should be launched into their home page. At the top of the page, there should be thumbnails of the following: Max Originals (I’m purposely not using the “HBO” name here), Warner Movies, DC Universe, For the Kids, HBO Originals, TV.
As you can see, the thumbnails easily split up the various types of content HBO Max has to offer, and making it easier for the viewer to get to where they want to go.
On that home page, below the thumbnails described above, should be the following: a row of stuff you put on your queue, a row of stuff recommended for you, a row of featured content HBO Max is pushing. That can be it for the home page. Clean and simple. If you want more, below that there could be rows of recommended for you content, but split into different stuff, like recommended TV, recommended movies, etc.
SUMMARY
That’s it. All pretty simple. Do the above, sit back, and let the content speak for itself. As far as quantity and quality (assuming they put all DC stuff here), this should be the best service. No reason to fail, other than AT&T idiocy.
The Hollywood Rant 