WBD’s Max to be tailored to ‘three categories’ of market in Europe

Leah Hooper-Rosa (Source: Warner Bros. Discovery)

Warner Bros. Discovery’s launch of Max in Europe will see it place the first wave of 22 target markets in three categories, with the product tailored to the characteristics of each, according to Leah Hooper Rosa, SVP, head of streaming EMEA at Warner Bros. Discovery.

Speaking at the OTT Question Time event at the British Museum today, Hooper Rosa said that Max in Europe will be part of “a global product” but with a locally-focused content offering geared to three categories of markets.

In the first, comprising Poland, the company has a big free-to-air business with lots of local content.

In the second, exemplified by Spain, streaming is leading the business and most content is HBO Max originals.

The third category, comprising markets where WBD’s presence is subscale, for example in CEE, the streamer will lean on theatrical and library content to some extent.

“Our markets are all really different and the way we work with partners…has been front and centre,” she said. “We are keen to explore bundling style partnerships and working with other content businesses to bring our two libraries together.”

Verizon’s bundling of Max with Netflix and a content partnership with AMC in the US are examples of how this might be done, she said.

Max in Sky markets

Hooper Rosa said that WBD “has not been shy” about its ambition to launch its own streaming service in markets where it currently has a distribution partnership with Sky in 2026, without giving details about the impact the launch would have on existing licensing agreements.

The acquisition of Turkey’s BluTV was “a great example of where WBD did not have a streaming footprint,” she said, enabling WBD to develop and test the right content for the market and to see if that content could travel elsewhere, for example to LATAM.

There is now HBO and Discovery content on BluTV, in a market where WBD did not previously have a strong presence.

In Sweden, where WBD has sports assets, the company will emphasise its sports functionality, she said.

WBD would look to integrate sports, including Eurosport, into Max in the future. In the UK, the company will also look to combine TNT Sport with Eurosport in time.

Hooper Rosa said WBD was looking to experiment with different monetisation models, such as annual and monthly passes. She said monetisation would be tailored to local needs. Part of how this will work will depend on distribution partnerships, she said.

Customising on a language-by-language basis with multiple layers of compliance mean that the European launch will have added layers of complexity, said Hooper Rosa.

Hooper Rosa said that Max’s planned February 27 LATAM launch was now being worked on behind the scenes now, with the European launch in 22 markets to follow “in the spring” followed by France and Belgium later in the year.

Migration and engagement

She said that since the May 2023 launch in the US, Max had been focused om migrating legacy customers into the new platform. Second, she said, the streamer had been focused on driving up engagement.

“That’s where bringing the two libraries together has really helped,” she said, in addition to tools to surface content recommendations.

The launch of CNN News in beta and The Bleacher Report later in the year was “about driving habituality”, attempting to keep customers with the platform through daily engagement through the addition of sport and news into the mix, she added.

She said the goal was to make Max “the first choice” for streaming viewers by catering to different moods, including “lean back” and “lean-in” content.