by Thinus Ferreira
Warner Bros. Discovery has decided to keep its discovery+ video streaming service (which isn't available in South Africa or across Africa) as a separately available streaming service, although it will also be available as a folded-in tile destination on the larger HBO Max streaming service which is yet to be rebranded under a new name.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Warner Bros. Discovery execs have decided not to do away with discovery+ - as has been the plan - but to keep it available as a separate streaming service.
The thought process behind the scenes is that Warner Bros. Discovery doesn't want to lose the subscribers who are and might be interested in paying for and subscribing to discovery+, which is cheaper and will cost less, but who might abandon or not be willing to pay for the much more expensive HBO Max just to get Discovery content.
Warner Bros. Discovery is realising that some subscribers just want the core content of a streaming service's offering and are willing to pay for just that - case in point discovery+ - but will cancel if they have to pay more to get access to that content when it's folded into a bigger service.
According to The Wall Street Journal report, "the decision to keep discovery+ is part of an effort to avoid risking losing a significant chunk of the app's 20 million subscribers who might not to want to pay the higher price to access that content".
Like discovery+, HBO Max has also been late out of the gate in reaching South African customers, and is also not available in South Africa or across Africa.
It hasn't yet launched as either a stand-alone streaming service or in a partnership agreement with MultiChoice and hosted on devices like the DStv Explora, with no indication of a date as to when it might launch in South Africa.
Warner Bros. Discovery has also not given any launch date yet of the combined HBO Max and discovery+ streaming service, although it will be in 2023 and the name will very likely just be Max, dropping the HBO.
