HBO Max's global expansion faces intense competition & tangled rights

From his home in the English port city of Sunderland, John Campbell reads everything he can about HBO Max. When theaters across the UK shut down because of the pandemic, Campbell got excited about potentially being able to see new movies on the streaming service.
 
But like everyone else in the UK, Campbell will have to wait for his chance to sign up, possibly for several years. HBO Max may not arrive in some of Europe’s largest markets, including the UK, Germany and Italy, until 2025, when an exclusive deal between HBO and the European pay-TV provider Sky expires.

 
Campbell, a 27-year-old TV cord-cutter, predicts the delay could push people to pirate HBO Max programming illegally or lose interest altogether. “It’s shocking for anyone wanting new exclusive content,” he said.
 

The deal with Sky is an example of the tangled international rights that HBO Max is navigating as it tries to catch up with Netflix and Disney+ around the world. The Sky agreement has been lucrative for its parent, WarnerMedia. But analysts say it threatens to slow down HBO Max in a fast-moving global race for streaming domination.
 
 
“A few years might be a dangerously long amount of time in the future given the pace at which other streaming services are continuing to grow,” said Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at the advertising giant GroupM.

 
HBO Max made its debut in the US last May. After a tumultuous start, the streaming service gained traction late last year when its app arrived on Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, and it started showing Warner Bros. movies, such as Wonder Woman 1984, the same day they arrived in theaters. With 64 million worldwide subscribers to HBO and HBO Max, WarnerMedia still has a long way to go to catch up with the industry’s leaders. Netflix has over 200 million global subscribers. Disney+ has more than 100 million.
 
Complicated, expensive
 
Success in streaming, as Netflix has shown, ultimately requires reaching subscribers in every corner of the planet. But taking a streaming service around the world is complicated and expensive. It involves creating locally-sourced shows in multiple languages and navigating regions that don’t have reliable broadband or many consumers with credit cards. For HBO Max, it also means deciding when is the right time to give up revenue from licensing deals.

 
HBO Max’s global strategy could be totally upended a year from now when its parent, WarnerMedia, completes its merger with Discovery Inc., which has its own streaming service, Discovery+.
 
In the meantime, HBO Max will kick off its international expansion on June 29 in Latin America and the Caribbean, where subscriptions will start at $3 per month — far less than the $15 price in the US. The HBO brand is already well-known in the region, where the network has enjoyed a presence since 1991. HBO Latin America, as the division is called, operates its own channels, which collectively have about 10 million subscribers.

 
HBO Max has committed to making 100 original productions in Latin America over two years and will stream the popular UEFA Champions League soccer matches live to subscribers in Brazil and Mexico. HBO Max will be available on several pay-TV services in the region, including those of AT&T, which owns WarnerMedia and is a major wireless operator in Mexico.