HBO Max fails to make good use of House of the Dragon’s soaring popularity
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It seems you need more than dragons to attract audiences to your streaming service. Well, HBO Max does anyway.
During its earnings report for the third quarter of 2022 (opens in new tab)Warner Bros. revealed. Discovery (WBD) that streaming subscriptions on all three home entertainment platforms were on the rise. For those who don’t know, that trio consists of HBO Max, HBO and Discovery Plus, with a worldwide subscriber base of the triumvirate totaling 94.9 million paying customers.
Contextually, that sounds like good news for WBD. The entertainment giant, which was only recently formed after a merger between the two companies, added 2.8 million subscribers to its three streamers between July and September 2022 – a small but seemingly significant increase that brings it closer to the milestone total of 100 million. In comparison, Netflix added just 2.41 million news subscribers over the same period.
While WBD can boast of the new subscribers it’s gained in the past three months, these numbers don’t give the full picture.
First, WBD declined to provide a full breakdown of how many subscribers each streaming platform has. The latest official figures from Warner Bros. came out April 2022 – Warner was a standalone company at the time – which showed that HBO Max had a subscriber base of 76.8 million (per cord knives (opens in new tab)). In February 2022, Discovery confirmed that Discovery Plus had accumulated 22 million paying customers (per Variety (opens in new tab)). Add those two numbers together — so 98.8 million — and it looks like WBD lost subscribers between January and November 2022.
So, what gives? It is likely that, with the merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery, customers pay for HBO Max and Discovery Plus simply lumped their accounts into WBD’s total subscriber count. However, without a full rundown of each platform’s fanbase, we can only guess that this is the main reason behind this actual slight downturn.
Regardless of the shady nature of WBD’s overall subscriber base, the fact that the megacorporation has not yet surpassed 100 million subscribers is sure to be a serious disappointment.
This is especially true for HBO and HBO Max. House of the Dragon, the highly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel series that launched on August 21, is one of the biggest TV hits of the year. According to WBD’s earnings report, House of the Dragon was the biggest series premiere in HBO history, with the R-rated, high-fantasy drama drawing nearly 10 million viewers on opening night alone. The HBO Max show was also the largest series launch on the streaming service in the US, and in Latin America and EMEA regions, with all episodes averaging 29 million viewers in the weeks that followed.
Despite the rising popularity of House of the Dragon, it has failed to fuel WBD’s subscriber push for HBO and HBO Max. The series may have some of the highest ratings of 2022, but WBD has converted just 10% of that audience (2.8 million new users from 29 million House of the Dragon viewers) into paying customers. And that’s new subscribers to HBO, HBO Max, and Discovery Plus. Not really convincing, right?
Even with a hugely popular show, WBD’s streaming services still can’t convince their rivals when it comes to having a large fan base. Despite the difficulties it endured in 2022, Netflix’s 223 million subscriber base ensures that it is still the king of the streaming landscape.
However, Disney Plus brings in Netflix, with the home of Marvel and Star Wars with figures of 152.1 million subscribers (per Variety (opens in new tab)) in August. On all of its streaming platforms, including ESPN Plus and Hulu, Disney’s total subscriber base stands at 221.1 million — another testament to how far WBD has to go to rival its competitors.
Obviously, HBO Max and its cousins still have a long way to go to catch Netflix and Disney Plus in the increasingly crowded subscription race. Fan-favorite shows, including Succession, House of the Dragon, and Euphoria, will continue to help it grow. And thanks to its top-notch back catalog of shows and HBO Max movies, WBD should be sure to push through in the fight to reach as many viewers as possible. These are just two reasons why we think HBO Max is the best streaming service of 2022.
But it’s not all good news for HBO Max and company. HBO Max and Discovery Plus won’t be around in their current form for much longer, with WBD planning to consolidate the streaming platforms into one massive service in Q1 or Q2 2023. A price increase is also planned, while the merged HBO Max-Discovery Plus platform could see the number of ads double at its ad-based subscription tier.
“Dreams didn’t make us kings, but dragons did,” Prince Daemon tells Queen Rhaenyra in the season finale of House of the Dragon. That may be true in Westeros, but it’s not in the real world — and Warner Bros. Discovery should be well aware of that as it tries to assert its dominance in the streaming industry.
For more WBD-based content, read the five big questions House of the Dragon Season 2 must solve. Or find out how much an HBO Max subscription costs now, see everything you need to know about HBO’s The Last of US TV adaptation, or find out how to watch the DC movies in order.