Warner Bros Discovery in talks with Amazon for new HBO Max deal: sources

WARNER Bros Discovery has been in talks with Amazon.com about restarting a distribution agreement for the online retailer to sell Warner's HBO Max along with its Prime Video service.

A deal to resell the HBO Max streaming service could come this year, according to several people familiar with the discussions who asked to not be identified because the negotiations are private. The talks could still falter. Warner Bros Discovery will only cut a deal if Amazon agrees to some additional terms, such as sharing data about viewer behaviour.

Spokesperson for Amazon and Warner Bros Discovery, the parent of HBO, CNN and other channels, declined to comment.

If the 2 sides came to an agreement it would reverse a move that happened only last year. HBO Max, then owned by AT&T, pulled its service off of the Amazon platform, a move that cost the company 5 million subscribers. Warner executives said at the time they wanted to have a direct relationship with the customers. Amazon limited HBO Max's access to information about viewer habits as well as its ability to promote new programmes.

The Warner business merged in April with Discovery and there's now a lot of incentive for chief executive officer David Zaslav to get a deal done. Zaslav needs to boost HBO Max's subscriber base and generate additional revenue to help pay off debt and lift the stock of Warner Bros Discovery, which has fallen about 45 per cent since Discovery completed the merger.

Customers of Amazon's Prime Video can buy subscriptions to many streaming services as an add-on and watch the programming from those companies within Prime. Many services, including Starz and Sundance Now, rely on this model, allowing Amazon to handle billing and getting thousands or millions of additional customers in exchange.

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Zaslav and his streaming chief, JB Perrette, aren't as doctrinaire about owning the customer relationship as the previous Warner management. Their other big streaming service, Discovery+, is sold via Amazon channels, and the 2 companies have been testing a programme whereby Amazon shares some customer data with Discovery. BLOOMBERG