Warner Bros. Discovery shocked advertisers at its upfront, announcing the re-rebrand of HBO Max. Plus, it discussed new ad tech and IP for ad partnerships.

The streaming wars have evolved. Here's how Hollywood giants are shifting their goals, based on BI's conversations with analysts and employees.

Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) streaming service Max will be called HBO Max starting this summer, bringing back a name that WBD curiously ditched a couple of years ago.

Warner Bros. Discovery executives are reinstating the name HBO Max for the popular streaming service. It’s the fourth name change for the app in the last decade.

“I am completely bewildered by the HBO Max rebrand,” says Debbie Millman, a designer, brand consultant, and host of the Design Matters podcast. “HBO took four decades of prestige and casually tossed it all into a dumpster, lit a match, and cheered as it burned.”

Netflix, Disney, and other media stocks fell after President Trump proposed a 100% tariff on foreign-made films.

On his Thursday, May 8, 2025 first quarter-earnings conference call, Perrette said his and David Zaslav ’s “password-sharing crackdown initiative” will take “12 to 18 months” to be “full steam.” It “will create another boost of both subscriber and [average revenue per user] growth through the extra member add-on,” Perrette said.

V ery little positive can be said about Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (NASDAQ: WBD), which was created by a merger of Discovery and AT&T’s media operations. The stock has taken a