Throughout 2024, HBO Max will become simply Max. That in Spain, because in the United States the name change of the platform will happen much earlier, in May of this year. Thus, the last season of Succession, HBO’s flagship series for years, has started there on one platform and will end on another, ironically underlining the idea that another chapter in history will close with the end of the Roy series. from the television. Although it could also be that we are inventing a drama and things really are not that bad.
But that the initials HBO disappear from the name of the platform is very significant and, in a way, a real drama. If what is not named does not exist, what is renamed changes and what is unnamed disappears a bit. For the HBO brand, without which the current strength of television series cannot be understood, to come out of the name of the service that contains it is an important move. HBO does not die, neither as a brand nor as a channel in the territories in which it also operates in this way, but it does recode. He puts himself in his place.
If the letters L and V, corresponding to “Louis” and “Vuitton”, were removed from LVMH, the great French luxury conglomerate, the maneuver would make headlines. That’s what’s happening with Max. The end of this chapter of television history may have more to do with the letters for “Home Box Office” coming out of his name.
However, the parallelism between a hypothetical LVMH without LV and a Max without HBO (in name, mind you, only in name) might not be too accurate. Although the French holding does not publicly break down its results by brand, it is understood that Louis Vuitton’s contribution to them is probably the largest. In other words, removing the name of the company that gives it the most dough from the company name would be ridiculous. As the data, both economic and viewing, offered by platforms such as Netflix or HBO Max, are even more interested, it is risky to say which series, which creators and which divisions are most important to them. We are not surprised that the assumptions made by texts like this one are received with sly laughter in the meeting rooms of these companies, aware of the reality of their business.
What we can assume without risk is that HBO is a very valuable brand. It may not be, like Louis Vuitton, enormously profitable and visible at the same time, but it is absurd to argue its importance as a seal of quality. And they know that in Max. Although they may also know that the generally very careful HBO productions spend more than they earn. In times when the viability of the tours of some pop stars is questioned if they do not sell tickets to their concerts for gross figures, it makes sense that we put ourselves in the shoes of a platform executive (let’s say, for example, Max ) to which the prestige of a brand like HBO knows little. Because expenses and dividends are not paid with prestige, but with money.
In exquisite off-the-record conversations, journalists like the one signing this hear from time to time stories about series that do not make headlines but do provide good data on new subscribers (the primary objective of the platforms) and, on the contrary, hardships generated by fictions that , week by week, fill the series sections of the media. It is indisputable that Succession is one of the great series of recent years. As much as it is by no means the jewel in the crown of any income statement.
In the same way that LVMH constantly throws money away on things that are economically ruinous per se (haute couture fashion shows, creative directors with the salary of a Hollywood star…) but capable of generating desirability in almost vulgar products (canvas bags, doubtful perfumes). quality…), Max knows that having HBO in his portfolio of brands is very important. He also knows that the HBO legend was born in a world without Netflix, without Prime Video, without Apple series and without Disney. It is a mythical brand, but it is no longer the mythical brand, in the singular. There are even those who do not consider it so important. These people also pay subscriptions, just as there are people who buy Sauvage because they like the way it smells and because Johnny Depp is in his ads, not because they get excited watching Dior couture shows.
Many Max subscribers will get into Max on HBO. Others don’t. And nothing happens.
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