All those cutbacks and layoffs are working: Warner Bros. Discovery Thursday said its streaming unit earned $409 million in profits during the fourth quarter of 2024, up from the $289 million it made the previous three months — and far better than the many millions it had been losing for years. Of course, in order to make sure those profits stay healthy, WBD needs to keep finding new ways of increasing revenue, and this week it identified a new one: charging (some) Max subscribers more for sports and news.
In a completely unsurprising move — and, to be fair, a pretty logical one — the streamer is finally going through with a long-delayed plan to begin charging a big chunk of its customers for the Bleacher Report Sports content that’s been streaming for free on the platform since October 2023. The streamer had originally said it would implement a $10 monthly surcharge for B/R ahead of the 2024 Final Four, but then pushed that date back indefinitely when it looked like Venu was going to be a thing. Venu is no more, of course, and in the meantime, WBD also lost its NBA package to NBCUniversal, and, well … plans change.
Starting March 30, anybody who subscribes to the cheaper, ad-supported version of Max will have to upgrade to the $17 per month ad-free tier in order to keep getting B/R. And in a new bit of stinginess, you’ll also have to pay the extra $7 per month for ad-free Max if you want to keep streaming CNN on Max. Amazingly, Max spun all this as a big win for viewers, complete with a press release headline touting “no additional cost to consumers.” And, look, since most people who get Max have the ad-free version, and since 18 months ago the streamer had said it would begin charging everyone for B/R, I guess the continuation of the status quo for most counts as a “win”?
But with B/R soon to offer a lot fewer NBA games, and CNN on Max now featuring less live content than it once did, I’m not sure how big of a victory this really is, especially since “free” has been the default since October 2023. Plus, as THR’s Etan Vlessing smartly pointed out Wednesday, Max has decided to not charge ad-free customers for B/R and CNN “for now.” Anyone wanna place bets on whether Beloved CEO David Zaslav doesn’t figure out a way to change that over the next year or two?
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the company that won the rights to WBD’s NBA package. It was NBCUniversal.