Tuesday is officially the day that Warner Bros. Discovery drops the “HBO” from HBO Max. The streaming service is now called Max, but despite its shorter name, it has far more content than it did yesterday. The Max streaming library features content from HGTV, Food Network, Discovery Channel, TLC, and ID, along with all of HBO’s content.
Max subscribers are getting all of that content whether they like it or not, but if you don’t want to watch reality TV, we have terrific news. WBD put a dedicated HBO tab on the Max home screen, so you shouldn’t even have to see Dr. Pimple Popper, Cake Boss, Operation Sex Sting, Kendra Sells Hollywood, or Return to Amish when you open the app.
If you happen to watch Max in your browser, you can just bookmark this page to go straight to the HBO tab every time you visit the site. That tab features all of HBO’s original shows, such as Succession, House of the Dragon, Barry, and The Last of Us. You’ll also find Warner Bros. films in that tab, including Dune, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and The Batman.
Sadly, if you’re using the mobile app or TV app, you’ll have to manually navigate to the HBO tab every time you open the app, but at least it’s there.
The fact that there is a separate HBO hub shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially considering how valuable the brand is for Warner Bros. Discovery. That said, its prominence confirms that Warner Bros. Discovery knows plenty of Max subscribers will have no interest in even trying out any of the Discovery+ content that has now bled into the combined service.
Name changes aside, flooding the Max service with content that few subscribers seemed to be clamoring for was a bold decision. It will be months before we find out whether or not it paid off, but in the meantime, at least you can avoid most of it.
