When HBO Max launched in late May, I used to be excited regardless of all of the branding confusion around the service.
Whereas HBO centered on a small variety of intellectual reveals and films, HBO Max affords many extra films and reveals from WarnerMedia and past. It has the potential to be a real rival to Netflix, with a broad catalog that’s value holding year-round as a substitute of simply every time one of the best HBO reveals arrive.
Now that HBO Max is right here, I can see the fact: HBO Max is a greater worth HBO than was once, however its catalog nonetheless dwarves these of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. That in all probability received’t change anytime quickly, as father or mother firm AT&T continues to unfold its content material catalog throughout a number of streaming providers as a substitute of investing in only one. AT&T has claimed to be ”all in” on HBO Max, however as with so lots of the firm’s different streaming video endeavors, this one looks as if one other half measure.
Comparing the catalogs
Last week, the streaming information service Reelgood offered a useful analysis of a number of high streaming providers, together with HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Apple TV+. The firm counted up the entire variety of films and TV reveals in every service, then decided what number of have been “Quality” (outlined by IMDb rankings of at the very least 6.0 for films and 6.5 for TV reveals with at the very least 300 votes) and what number of have been “High Quality” (with IMDb scores of at the very least 7.5 for films and 8.0 for TV reveals).
Reelgood’s evaluation reveals that HBO Max’s TV present choice is 20- to 25-percent smaller than these of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, with lower than half the choice of high quality and high-quality reveals. Its film catalog can be about half the scale of Netflix’s, and it has about 13 p.c of the films that Amazon Prime does.
I needed to take this knowledge a step additional, although, so I created some new charts evaluating Reelgood’s evaluation with a similar one it conducted in 2018. That means, we are able to see how high quality and amount have modified over time, and get a way of simply how a lot further worth HBO Max is including.
It seems that HBO Max’s content material infusion barely makes up for the traditional progress in content material that Netflix and Prime undergo yearly. While the HBO Max catalog is roughly double what HBO alone provided two years in the past, Netflix and Amazon Prime have made even greater leaps over the identical interval.
Netflix, as an illustration, has added 551 high quality or high-quality reveals since 2018. Those new arrivals alone are bigger than your entire HBO Max TV present catalog. And whereas typical knowledge holds that Netflix’s movie catalog is shrinking in favor of unique TV reveals, it’s held pretty regular since 2018, whereas the choice has shifted towards higher-quality movies.
Amazon Prime’s progress is equally outstanding, including 1,989 high quality films and 463 high-quality films since 2018, once more far outpacing HBO Max’s film enlargement. Amazon additionally continues to carry an enormous lead over HBO Max’s TV catalog, growing its variety of high quality or high-quality TV reveals by 620 over the past two years. HBO Max’s total TV choice affords simply 410 reveals whole.
Dividing the quantity of content material in every of those providers by their price to the patron reveals how they’ve turn into extra (or much less) beneficial over time.
Even once you account for Netflix’s and Amazon Prime’s modest worth hikes since 2018, the worth of every subscription has elevated at a better charge than HBO Max, particularly on the TV aspect. HBO Max’s content material infusion has helped, however not by a lot.
(As an apart, Reelgood’s knowledge helps disprove the lazy argument that providers like Netflix and Amazon Prime used to have every little thing, and now they don’t. In reality, they’ve extra to supply than ever; different providers like HBO Max are additive.)
Revolving doorways
These charts assist clarify why HBO Max’s choice feels a bit hole, nevertheless it’s not the one clarification.
As Joshua Rivera wrote for The Verge after HBO Max’s launch, the catalog is full of inconsistencies. While numerous DC Extended Universe films are current, Birds of Prey and Man of Steel aren’t, and basic DC-based reveals like Smallville and Lois and Clark are lacking as properly. There are some basic Adult Swim cartoons, together with Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, however not others, resembling The Brak Show and Harvey Birdman. Most of Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth movies can be found, however not The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. As Rivera notes, the inconsistencies make HBO Max really feel like much less of a identified amount.
Part of the issue is that AT&T continues to be attempting to juggle different streaming providers on the identical time. It operates Crunchyroll for anime, DC Universe for superhero content material, and Boomerang for cartoons, and whereas HBO Max affords alternatives from these content material siloes, AT&T is treating their full catalogs as upsells.
HBO Max isn’t even hanging onto a few of its most defining content material. A lot of DC Universe movies will leave the service on July 1, together with Justice League, Wonder Woman, LEGO Batman, and the Burton-Schumacher Batman movies from the late 80s and 90s. Instead of getting a steady assortment of DC movies on the service, WarnerMedia says the plan is to have “a collection of DC films that will rotate on the platform.”
Granted, content material licensing isn’t at all times easy. Movies or reveals that may appear to belong to 1 media firm or studio may truly be wrapped up in distribution offers with one other.
But we’ve seen how Disney moved mountains to get the original Star Wars movies rights from Turner, permitting Disney+ to host them on day one. Disney additionally took the daring step of bringing FX unique collection to Hulu at no further cost a couple of months in the past, making FX’s cable channel much less beneficial within the course of. It’s arduous to shake the sensation that AT&T simply isn’t attempting arduous sufficient.
In search of intestinal fortitude
This sample has performed out with AT&T repeatedly within the cord-cutting period. The firm rapidly grew DirecTV Now as a compelling cable various, then simply as rapidly made it unappealing via extreme worth hikes and channel cuts. It provided a small, low-cost bundle of cable channels with AT&T Watch TV—at one level making it free with sure AT&T wi-fi plans—however by no means received round to including Roku assist and has now stopped selling the service fully. It constructed an intriguing gateway to cord-cutting with the AT&T TV service and set-top box, solely to saddle it with long-term contracts and built-in price hikes.
With HBO Max, historical past is repeating itself, as AT&T undermines the service with a comparatively small, inconsistent, and ever-shifting catalog. If AT&T actually thinks HBO Max is the way forward for its TV enterprise, the corporate might do much more to indicate it.
Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter to get extra cord-cutting information, insights, and offers delivered to your inbox.