By Joe Flint

Warner Bros. Discovery is rebranding its streaming service to "HBO Max." Again.

The entertainment company said Wednesday that it would return to the service's original moniker from its 2020 launch. It dropped the HBO in 2023, rebranding to Max, to the chagrin of many fans of the well-known HBO brand.

After a slow start, the streaming service has gained momentum over the past year by sharpening its focus on adult content like "The Last of Us" and "Hacks," instead of trying to provide endless entertainment to all types of consumers. At the end of 2024 it had 117 million subscribers worldwide, and the company projects that at the end of 2026, it will top 150 million subscribers.

"We are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media," Warner Chief Executive David Zaslav said.

There has long been a debate inside the company and across the industry about the decision to drop HBO from the name of the streaming service, given how well-established that brand had been.

Casey Bloys, HBO and Max content chief, said in an interview Wednesday that HBO had been a little "precious" with its name and that the brand was too strong not to take advantage of, to further drive the service's growth.

HBO purists were concerned that the brand would be tarnished by being linked to cheesy Discovery reality fare, such as "Dr. Pimple Popper" and "My 600-lb Life," that appeared on the streamer after the 2022 merger between AT&T's Warner Media and Discovery Communications.

As recently as March, senior Warner executives were still standing by the Max name.

JB Perrette, the head of global streaming for Warner Bros. Discovery, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal at the time that putting the HBO name alongside Max "would completely undermine what it had spent 50 years building."

Perrette said in an interview Wednesday that the streaming service wants to be distinct and unique, and the HBO name "defines all those things better than any brand in the industry."

Write to Joe Flint at Joe.Flint@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 14, 2025 10:24 ET (14:24 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.