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The launch of HBO Max into the increasingly crowded UK television market last week has prompted deals for consumers as former rivals team up amid a slowdown in subscriber growth.

The Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) streaming service hopes a competitive price for direct sign-ups and deals bundling the service through Sky will make it a must-have and not an also-ran, in a British TV ecosystem upended by Netflix 14 years ago.

In a media landscape where new and exclusive content is essential to winning and keeping customers, WBD is banking on a vast library of established hits and much-hyped new shows to secure a regular spot on screens.

The service will feature Warner Bros films including the entire DC superhero franchise, Harry Potter, Sinners and One Battle After Another, as well as shows from HBO, the home of The Sopranos, Band of Brothers, The Wire and Succession.

It also offers an extensive archive of TV favourites including Friends, which has been unavailable in the UK since moving off Netflix at Christmas, and the Big Bang Theory.

A lot is also riding on the Harry Potter TV series – brought forward for release from next year to this Christmas – and titles such as The Pitt, the medical drama starring ER’s Noah Wyle, which took the US by storm last year but debuted in the UK on the new service.

“The key trigger point for HBO Max here will be the Harry Potter launch,” says Matt Trickett, the head of media at the data and research firm Ampere Analysis. “It is the first massive piece of intellectual property they have over and above movies.

“They have put so much money into the series and it is completely exclusive outside of their Sky deal.”

After years in lock-step with Sky with a series of TV and film deals, making the pay-TV company the “home of HBO” and negating the ability to launch its own streaming service, WBD finally struck a deal in 2024 to unpick its relationship.

However, Sky retains certain rights including being able to broadcast any new series of shows that aired on its service before the end of last year, such as White Lotus, Euphoria, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. This makes new content such as Harry Potter and The Pitt all the more valuable.

“We are at day zero,” says JB Perrette, the global head of WBD’s streaming and games business. “What we haven’t been able to do to date is have people come directly to us and get exactly what they want.”

With HBO Max’s cheapest package priced at £4.99 a month with ads, it is under-cutting rivals Netflix, Disney and Paramount+ by £1. And for those willing to pay £1 more monthly, all the new Hollywood releases will be available, instead of having to pay an extra charge to view each film.

However, WBD has also struck a deal to bundle HBO Max into a package through Sky – which also includes Netflix, Disney+ and NBC Universal’s reality TV-focused Hayu – for £24 a month.

“It is £1 more per month than signing up for each of the streaming services separately, but consumers also get standard Sky TV,” says Jaanika Juntson, a research manager at Ampere. “The challenge for HBO Max is how many people will view its content, it is a different dynamic to those signing up for a service directly.”

The strategy of signing partnership deals with former rivals is a relatively recent shift by streamers as the growth from more profitable direct sign-ups dries up.

In 2020, the pandemic helped drive a 37% year-on-year increase in subscribers to the UK’s biggest streamers, but by 2022 this had tempered to a 20% rise and last year it was just 7%. Without the boost given by the arrival of HBO Max, growth would have been less than 5% this year.

It took Netflix until 2018, six years after launching in the UK, to bury the hatchet with Sky and become the first of the big streamers to offer a package combining their content. And Disney+ struck its first-ever bundling deal, again with Sky, only this month.

“[The idea] that it is only OK if subscribers come through purely directly is not a religion we subscribe to,” says Perrette. “As long as the economics make sense we will embrace getting out to consumers as quickly as possible … to get to scale as quickly as possible.”

WBD has another lure for UK subscribers, as it is moving all its sports content on to HBO Max, including streaming rights to the Olympics until at least 2032 and TNT Sports, the joint venture with BT that hosts events including Premier League and Champions League football matches.

It is also appealing to fans to sign up directly through the HBO Max app, where it is offering deals combining sports and entertainment that it says save consumers between £60 and £131 for the first year.

HBO Max is on track to hit just over 6 million subscribers by the end of this year, making it the UK’s fourth biggest paid-for streaming service, according to Ampere. This behind Netflix on 18.6 million subscribers, Amazon’s Prime Video on 12.65 million and Disney+ on 8.04 million.

However, even as it seeks to take its place at the UK streaming top table, the service could change radically if new owners get their way.

Paramount Skydance, which triumphed over Netflix with a $110bn (£83bn) offer to buy WBD last month, has said that if the deal cleared all regulatory hurdles then it would merge HBO Max with Paramount+.

Putting aside the matter of what any combined entity might be called, this would mean the addition of big film franchises including Mission Impossible, Top Gun, Transformers and Star Trek.

And while there would be the headache of yet another restructuring, bringing Channel 5 into the enlarged business, a tie-up would save TNT from being severely weakened by the surprise loss to Paramount of the TV rights to the Champions League in the UK from 2027.

“I am not going to talk about what might happen in the future,” says Perrette, who could receive $142m in cash severance and equity if the deal goes through.

“The benefit for us of being a late mover here is we have had the time to come to the realisation of who we are, what we are and, importantly, what we aren’t. A lot of the other streamers are going to do more volume [of programming] than we will. But it is not around just chasing volume. We are trying to be more curated and chase quality.”

How the UK streamers compare on price and reach

Netflix: Standard (with ads) £5.99 a month. Standard (no ads) £12.99 a month. Forecast to have 18.59 million subscribers by the end of 2026.
Amazon Prime Video: £7.99 a month with ads, £10.98 without. As part of a full Amazon Prime subscription: £8.99 with ads, £11.98 no ads, £95 annually. Subscriber forecast 12.65 million.
Disney+: Standard (with ads) £5.99 a month. Standard (no ads) £9.99, or £99.90 a year. Subscriber forecast 8.04 million.
HBO Max: Basic with ads £4.99 a month (including new films £5.99). Or £9.99 (no ads). Subscriber forecast 6.06 million.
Paramount+: £4.99 a month (with ads). Standard (no ads) £7.99 a month. Subscriber forecast 5.66 million.
Apple TV: £9.99 (no ads) or £89.99 annually. Subscriber forecast 2.31m
Sky’s Now TV: From £2.99 to £27.99 a month depending on content package. Subscriber forecast 1.81 million.
Discovery+: from £3.99 a month. Subscriber forecast 1.06 million.
ITVX: Free with ads. Or ad free option £5.99 a month. Paying subscriber forecast 980,000.

Source: Company websites and Ampere Analysis