James R | On 09, Apr 2022

When will HBO Max arrive in the UK? 2025, head of HBO Max Global Johannes Larcher has confirmed in an interview this week.

That date has been a lingering question underpinning every Warner release in the past few years, as the company looks to build its streaming service. From Game of Thrones to DC superheroes, Warner has one of the most high-profile collection of franchises on the big and small screen. Ever since Netflix transformed the media landscape, other key industry players have responded by capitalising on their own IP, keeping it on their own streaming platforms rather than licensing them out to third party rivals. And so, in recent years, we’ve had NBC launch Peacock, Disney introduce Disney+ and Paramount launch Paramount+.

As of summer 2022, Peacock, Paramount+ and Disney+ will all have made the jump across the pond to exist in the UK, widening what was once a three-horse race – between Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Sky /NOW – into an increasingly fragmented marketplace of competing streamers. The arrival of each of these services, though, is no easy feat, due to a tangled web of existing international licensing agreements with broadcasters, distributors and streamers. Warner’s web is more complicated than most, partly thanks to its long-running deal with Sky as its exclusive UK partner – a deal that was renewed in 2019 for a five-year term.

With that agreement in place, HBO Max’s UK launch has always been on the back-burner, despite such big – and controversial – US moves as releasing all of Warner’s 2021 films day-and-date in cinemas and on HBO Max. In the UK, meanwhile, Warner spent the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic dabbling in Premium VOD rentals for film releases, while its HBO Max-branded TV shows have been licensed out to everyone from Amazon (Hacks) and the BBC (Love Life) to Sky (Raised by Wolves), often arriving at a significant delay.

Now, though, Warner has spoken publicly about its plans for the UK, which are already in place ready for “the end of 2025”.

“We have plans on the shelf for when we get to the UK,” head of HBO Max Global Johannes Larcher told Broadcast this week, after delivering a keynote speech at Mip TV about HBO Max’s global strategy.

“The end of 2025 is still some way away but we certainly know what our content strategy will be. We know what the service and the product will look like. A lot of that thinking is in place. To be honest we wish [it] could be earlier, but we will get there.”

He said that Sky and Warner are still “great partners” but the aim is very much to put all its titles into one HBO Max-shaped basket: “WarnerMedia has put all of its best content on HBO Max where it operates. We have the pay one and pay two windows in every territory. The best of our content is being brought to HBO Max, wherever we go.”

At present, HBO Max is live in 61 countries – including 15 countries in Europe added earlier this year – which leaves a significant number in its sights for the future. As for the UK, Ireland, Germany and Italy, there are three years to go.

 

“No plans” to launch HBO Max in UK yet

12th September 2021

Warner currently has no plans to launch HBO Max in the UK, as the media giant begins to expand its streaming service internationally.

The subscription platform is one of the latest to enter the increasingly competitive streaming market and takes a similar approach to Disney+, by bringing together all of WarnerMedia’s catalogue into one place. That means everything from New Line, DC, CNN, TNT, TBS, truTV and The CW to Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Crunchyroll, Rooster Teeth, Looney Tunes and, of course, HBO.

More specifically, that means a library that includes Westworld, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Game of Thrones, Veep, The Wire, Silicon Valley and other HBO documentaries and films, plus South Park, Rick & Morty (shared with Hulu), The Big Bang Theory, South Park, the new seasons of Doctor Who, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Batwoman, Doom Patrol, The OC, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, and the jewel in the crown of the Warner archive, Friends.

The service launched in May 2020 and has since become a key part of Warner’s strategy during the coronavirus pandemic, with all of its films in 2021 going to both cinemas and HBO Max in the USA. In the UK, meanwhile, Warner has been releasing its films as Premium VOD rentals after a shorter theatrical window agreed with cinemas.

That’s partly because HBO already has a number of deals in place in the UK, including Sky as its exclusive partner, which was renewed in 2019 for reportedly a five-year term. With the landscape in the UK markedly different to that in the USA, HBO has not yet confirmed when, or if, it will attempt a UK launch in the future.

Now, though, it has revealed that it will be coming to Europe from 26th Europe, launching in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Spain and Andorra. Another 14 European countries will follow in 2022 – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

In Germany and the UK, however, there “aren’t currently plans to launch”, reports Variety.

The comments come as two other major new US streaming platforms have confirmed details of their UK plans, both of whom have similarly complex relationships with Sky. Paramount+ will launch with its own app in 2022, but will notably also be partnering Sky to arrive on British screens, with Showtime series such as Billions already licensed exclusively to the pay-TV giant. (Other Paramount+ originals, including Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard and The Good Fight, are already licensed out to different UK broadcasters and streamers.) Read more about that here. NBC’s Peacock, meanwhile, will launch as part of Sky, which is also owned by parent company Comcast. A Peacock-branded library, with adverts, will join Sky’s platform at no extra charge to customers later this year. For more on that Add to Watchlist