Warner Bros. Discovery loses 1.8M subscribers amid Max rebrand

Warner Bros. Discovery reported its second-quarter earnings results Thursday, revealing that it dropped in 1.8 million streaming subscribers across HBO, Discovery+ and its new combined streaming service Max. The company now has a total of 95.8 million users, compared to 97.6 million in the first quarter.

“The migration to Max has gone exceedingly well with the overwhelming majority of subscribers in the US successfully transferred,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said during the earnings call, as an attempt to reassure investors. “While we have seen some expected subscriber disruption, we have experienced lower-than-expected churn throughout this process.”

The second quarter covers from April 1 to June 30, so although Q2 marks the first time the company has included Max subscriber totals, the third quarter will be when Max results are fully a factor.

Max, the combined HBO Max/Discovery+ streamer, launched on May 23. In the first week, 70% of existing HBO Max subscribers transitioned to Max, J. B. Perrette, WBD’s global streaming president, recently told the Wall Street Journal.

This story is developing.