HBO Max and Paramount+ will keep running as two separate streaming services after Paramount’s purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery closes on October 6. Variety reported Thursday that the apps are staying apart for the near future because each one has its own distribution deals with revenue attached, and both are profitable. Subscribers to either service keep the same app, login and price on Tuesday that they had on Monday.
A single combined service is still where David Ellison wants to end up. He told investors on March 2 that the company plans to put the two services together, and he has not walked that back. What he has never given is a date, a name or a price.
What Ellison Has Said About the Combined Service
On the March call, Ellison said the two services together have a little over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers. At the time, that was 78.9 million for Paramount+ and 131.6 million for HBO Max and Discovery+, added together without removing people who pay for both. Warner Bros. Discovery has since said its streaming business passed 140 million subscribers and expects to top 150 million by the end of the year. Netflix has more than 325 million.
Ellison also said he intends to keep the HBO brand. CNBC reported in March that HBO would likely live as a sub-brand inside the larger service, and Variety noted that Paramount had not said whether that means an HBO tile inside a new app or a full blend of the two libraries.
For the technology, Ellison pointed to work Paramount was already doing. The company spent the first half of 2026 moving its three existing streaming services onto one shared platform, and he told investors to expect the same approach with HBO Max.
A Bundle Comes Before a Merged App
Variety reports that the first step will probably be selling HBO Max and Paramount+ together as a bundle, with the two organizations combined over a longer stretch. People who spoke to the trade compared it to Disney’s handling of Hulu. Disney began folding Hulu into Disney+ in 2023, and the standalone Hulu app was still available in mid-2026.
No price for an HBO Max and Paramount+ bundle has been announced. A $19.99 figure that shows up in a lot of subscriber guides comes from a consumer survey that asked people about a hypothetical bundle at that price.
Casey Bloys Runs Both Services
HBO chief Casey Bloys is now in charge of HBO Max and Paramount+. Paramount streaming head Cindy Holland announced her exit on Tuesday. According to Variety, Ellison concluded that neither executive could be expected to report to the other, so he had to pick one.
Holland’s departure has left Paramount+ short-handed, per Variety, since the team was small to begin with. One insider told the trade that Taylor Sheridan’s Landman is the kind of Paramount+ series that could fit alongside HBO programming.
The Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max Bundle
Neither Skydance nor Disney has said what happens to the bundle that packages Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max at a discount. It is still on sale.
Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery announced that bundle in May 2024 as a commercial partnership between the two companies, and customers can buy it from either one. It is billed monthly with no annual option, and subscribers can cancel at any time and keep access through the end of the billing cycle. A change in who owns HBO Max does not end the agreement by itself, and the length of the contract has never been made public.
Two things could change the picture later. A Skydance bundle of HBO Max and Paramount+ would compete directly with the Disney package for the same HBO Max customer. And if HBO Max is eventually absorbed into a combined app, the Disney bundle would have to be rebuilt around that new service or ended. Until one of the companies makes an announcement, bundle subscribers keep all three services at the price they are paying now.
Sources: Variety, CNBC, Variety, TheWrap, CNN, CableTV.com, Collider, Disney+ Press, Hulu
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