Paramount+, HBO Max to be combined once acquisition closes

Paramount Skydance has announced plans to merge streamers Paramount+ and HBO Max once it wraps up its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

“We do plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers,” said CEO David Ellison on an investor call March 2, 2026.

There was no word on if either the Paramount+ or HBO Max branding might be used — or if a new name might be developed. It was also not immediately clear how a combined service’s content offerings might look after a merger or what the subscription cost of a combined service might be.

Ellison’s 200 million global DTC subscriber count appears to be based on estimates that put WBD DTC streaming subscriber count at around 123 million, added to the estimated 79 million subscribers Paramount+ reportedly has.

WBD’s figures include both HBO Max and Discovery+ subscribers, though the latter service is comparatively small. 

Reaching 200 million combined subscribers, however, assumes that all current HBO Max and Paramount+ subscribers will transition to the new platform, which is unlikely. It’s hard to estimate how many households have accounts at both services and it’s unlikely that subscribers will be willing to essentially pay twice for the same content — assuming that’s even an option Paramount offers after the merger. 

Multiple studies and surveys have shown that consumers are tiring of having too many subscriptions — especially for streaming — and that price sensitivity is a key factor as well.

It can be challenging to get consistent and timely streaming subscriber counts because they are often reported in broad figures and data may be delayed.

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It’s not clear when Paramount+ and HBO Max might be merged, including on how the timing might work once the overall merger is completed. There was also no word on which technology stack will ultimately be used or if the new app might resemble one service more than the other or go in a completely different direction.

Paramount’s offer to acquire all of WBD, which came after a bidding war with streaming giant Netflix, is worth around $108 billion and also calls for Paramount to assume around $33 billion in WBD debt. 

Netflix had been set to acquire WBD’s streaming and studios division for around $83 billion but the company bowed out Feb. 27, 2026, after Paramount submitted a revised bid. Among other terms, Paramount will also need to pay $2.8 billion to WBD to cover the breakup fee the company now owes Netflix.

Despite the potential for a 200-million-subscriber streamer, Netflix’s subscriber count is estimated to be between 300 and 325 million, meaning it will likely have at least a 100-million-subscriber count advantage over Paramount’s combined streamer. That gap is likely to grow once duplicative subscribers are eliminated between the two services.

Any of the involved streaming services could also have different subscriber counts by the time the platforms are merged. Netflix could also lose subscribers if consumers see Paramount’s updated offering as a better value or having more appealing content. 

Also during the March 2 call, Ellison indicated that Warner Bros. will continue to release around 30 films per year and that HBO will maintain creative independents to “do what it does best.”

Ellison also said his company has no plans to spinoff or sell WBD’s portfolio of linear cable channels, which include HGTV, Discovery and Food Network, after the deal goes through a move that would mirror what Comcast did with its cable properties when it created the Versant spinoff in early 2026.

If Paramount ultimately decides to use the Paramount+ branding or go in an entirely different direction, this would be equivalent to the third name change HBO Max has had since it launched in 2019. The streamer had been known as HBO Max until 2023, when it began rebranding as simply “Max.” 

Max launches monochromatic new brand that ties in to HBO

In 2025, Max’s branding was updated to reflect a more black-and-white, as opposed to bright blue, look that drew comparisons to the longtime HBO look.

HBO Max rebrand goes live with new tagline, ‘It’s good to be home’

Later that year WBD announced it would rebrand the service back to HBO Max. This included an updated logo, which was different from the original HBO Max look and essentially involved taking the HBO logo and combining it with the Max logo while dropping the dot in the middle of the “a” in “Max.”

The brand also began taking on a gray-silver look with hints of color, a move designed to be a nod to HBO’s longtime production card featuring animated signal static interference. 

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