{"id":249985,"date":"2025-07-09T05:56:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T05:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/249985\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T05:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T05:56:12","slug":"hbo-max-returns-as-max-name-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/249985\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO Max Returns as Max Name Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWarner Bros. Discovery<\/a> has settled on a date to reskin the Max<\/a> streamer back to HBO Max<\/a>: Early this Wednesday morning, according to streamer insiders. The flip won\u2019t happen simultaneously, but customers will see \u201cHBO Max\u201d on the apps that formerly said \u201cMax\u201d across the streamer\u2019s territories on July 9.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe switch had been anticipated to take place sometime this summer, but Warner Bros. Discovery hadn\u2019t revealed an exact day for the reversal until now. The timing is key: Execs wanted to restore the \u201cHBO Max\u201d name prior to next week\u2019s Emmy nominations announcement on July 15.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe decision to turn \u201cMax\u201d back into \u201cHBO Max\u201d was first announced<\/a> in May, timed to Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s upfronts presentation. At the time, WBD said in a press release that \u201creturning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect from the offering. It is also a testament to WBD\u2019s willingness to keep boldly iterating its strategy and approach \u2014 leaning heavily on consumer data and insights \u2014 to best position itself for success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLater, at the WBD upfront, Warner Bros. Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav added, \u201cThe powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming. Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe streamer launched as HBO Max in 2020, but then WBD opted to excise\u00a0HBO from the streamer\u2019s name in 2023<\/a>, changing it to just \u201cMax.\u201d (HBO and Max continued to compete under one \u201cHBO\/Max\u201d label for industry awards; for next week\u2019s Emmy noms, they can once again just be called \u201cHBO Max.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe return to HBO Max just two years later elicited plenty of guffaws in the industry \u2014 including internally. \u201cI know you\u2019re all shocked, but the good news is I have a drawer full of stationary from the last time around,\u201d HBO and Max content chief Casey Bloys joked to the upfronts crowd . HBO Max CMO Shauna Spenley gave her spin of the famous Spider-man pointing meme \u2014 but instead with three Superman characters pointing to each other, with the names \u201cHBO Go,\u201d \u201cMax\u201d and \u201cHBO Max.\u201d Spenley also admitted that she couldn\u2019t wait to see how \u201cLast Week Tonight\u201d host John Oliver will mock the name change on his next episode.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd of course, that following Sunday, Oliver did indeed mock his corporate bosses for the move. Comparing the name change to Donald Trump\u2019s decision to rebrand the Gulf of Mexico as the \u201cGulf of America,\u201d Oliver said on his show: \u201cSometimes, hypothetically, before we can get used to one dumb name\u201d \u2014 here the HBO Go logo appeared on the screen \u2014 \u201csome genius comes along and only makes it dumber\u201d (HBO Now). \u201cThen, somehow it gets dumber still\u201d (HBO Max) \u201cand against all the odds it becomes even worse\u201d (Max) \u201cbefore inexplicably going back to the stupid thing it was before\u201d (HBO Max).<\/p>\n

\n\tHBO\/Max\u2019s social team also had some fun with the change. \u201cThese rebrands are trying to murder me,\u201d the (soon-to-be-defunct) Stream on Max account said in its\u00a0updated bio<\/a>\u00a0on X at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warner Bros. Discovery has settled on a date to reskin the Max streamer back to HBO Max: Early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,25127,14556,382,16,15,47689],"class_list":{"0":"post-249985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-hbo-max","10":"tag-max","11":"tag-tv","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114821738263386478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}