A plan by Paramount CEO David Ellison to combine Paramount+ and HBO Max into a single streaming service will allow nearly 8 million Americans currently paying for both services to drop a subscription, according to Antenna data.
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Key Takeaways
- Ellison, whose company last week struck an agreement to buy HBO parent company Warner Bros. Discovery for $31 per share, on Monday announced the plan for a single combined streaming service while on a conference call with investors.
- There are currently about 35.8 million paying Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S. and 27.1 million paying HBO Max subscribers, according to Antenna, a platform that tracks paid subscriber numbers for advertisers.
- Of those, about 7.6 million people currently pay for both services, according to Antenna, representing 27.9% of HBO Max subscribers, and 21.1% of Paramount+ subscribers in the United States.
- If all existing subscribers stayed on during the merger, the new service would have a subscriber pool of at least 55.3 million U.S. customers at its inception.
- Antenna counts the number of paid accounts per service without including free trial users who have not yet converted to paid subscriptions or select bundles or wholesale deals, such as Paramount+ via Walmart+ or Netflix for T-Mobile customers.
- As of the last fiscal quarter, Warner Bros. Discovery reported it had 131.6 million global streaming subscribers and Paramount said Paramount+ hit 78.9 million subscribers.
Big Number
200 million. That’s how many direct-to-consumer subscribers the newly merged company would have globally, according to Ellison. His numbers would include subscribers outside of the U.S., linear HBO subscriptions and subscribers to BET+ and Discovery+ (of which there were 5.1 million in the U.S. as of January, per Antenna).
Surprising Fact
Ellison’s estimated subscriber base is still much less than what Netflix has globally. The streaming giant reported it had more than 325 million subscribers as of Dec. 31. Netflix is available in more than 190 markets globally, compared to the roughly 45 that have Paramount+ and 100 that have HBO Max.
What We Don’t Know
Anything about the proposed new service. Ellison didn’t mention anything about what it may be called or what it would cost (ad-free subscriptions to Paramount+ are priced at $13.99/month and an ad-free HBO Max subscription starts at $18.49/month). Ellison also suggested the merger will mean the combining of TNT Sports and CBS Sports.
Key Background
Netflix had already struck a deal to acquire Warner Bros. when Ellison, son of billionaire Larry Ellison, launched a hostile bid for Paramount to buy the studio instead. After weeks of back-and-forth, Netflix bowed out of the bidding war with co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters saying the company was “always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.” The $110 billion deal still needs approval from WBD shareholders and has to get past antitrust regulators, who may raise eyebrows at the potential for reduced competition, meaning fewer choices and higher prices for consumers.
This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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