Entertainment

I wish I could make tens of millions of dollars a year to rearrange deck chairs.

Executives at Warner Bros Discovery, the vast media conglomerate, had a bright idea to turbocharge the growth of its streaming service in 2023: rebrand its famous streaming service HBO, home to everything from The Sopranos and Game of Thrones to The Last of Us, from HBO Max to Max.

The move was made because HBO was not the sort of place “parents would most eagerly drop off their kids”, said the head of streaming, JB Perrette. Fast forward two years, and on Wednesday, executives at the same company unveiled a new bright idea: re-rebrand the service from Max to HBO Max.

The move will “further accelerate” the platform’s growth, according to David Zaslav, president and CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, or WBD.

“Returning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect from the offering,” a press release claimed, adding the reversal was “also a testament to WBD’s willingness to keep boldly iterating its strategy and approach”.

To boldly go ... where they've already been.