Warner Bros Discovery will launch Max in some parts of Asia in 2024/5, after the Paris Summer Olympics. While the company clearly has rights, the question is whether these are the right rights to win in a region where the overwhelming appeal is local, they’re late, and the fight is fierce. 

Warner Bros Discovery’s streaming boss J.B. Perrette wants Max up and running in Asia (ex Japan and India, where cold hard rights acquisitions’ cash trumped streaming ambitions) after the Paris Olympics in Summer 2024, after Latam in the first quarter and Europe before the Olympics. “Asia continues to be critically important but we have to [roll out Max] in that sequence. We’ll get to Asia before the end of next year with our existing markets and then we’ll move on to new markets again, starting in 2025,” Perrette said in a session at Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) APOS event at the end of September. 

There’s no question WBD has the rights and the franchises to launch; Game of Thrones, Succession, The White Lotus, Euphoria, Friends, The Big Bang Theory... and Barbie. 

What Perrette, WBD CEO and president, global streaming and games, didn’t address on stage in Bali that Wednesday was the bigger question: Are these the right rights to win in Asia, where local content has already proved to be a deal breaker for subscribers? If they aren’t, how fast can the programming/production team resuscitate HBO’s Asia originals ambitions formerly known as gung-ho? And/or, how quickly can the team muscle its way back into the furiously competitive acquisitions race? What he did say was that WBD may look for “clever ways to partner with local players... not just invest entirely ourselves, but there may be creative ways to partner with existing local players”.  

Details of Max programming plans in Asia, led by former iflix/HBO Max exec Jason Monteiro, have not been made public, and we have no reliable visibility on what the Max Asia development slate looks like. There’s talk that Korean acquisition/s is in the works; it’s not a huge leap of faith to believe this to be true.  It’s also not clear yet whether Monteiro will be building his own stand-alone streaming team. Even if he does, Perrette was clear about leveraging WBD’s long-established, deeply traditional resources/relationships/networks – now under the newly promoted James Gibbons – in the region to roll out Max.  

In Asia, WBD still operates the old HBO Go streaming service, which will be re-platformed as Max. The traditional business also includes linear channels widely distributed on platforms in a region where pay-TV hasn’t been disrupted in the same way as in other parts of the world. Platform bosses in Asia mostly like and rate HBO, which remains part of their premium offerings even if they’re not paying the premium they used to.       

Now wholly charged with streaming, Monteiro joined HBO/Max SE Asia in Jan 2022. Six months later, he joined Schwebig’s team as head of integrated marketing (including creative services) across the region and all lines of business. In early Sept 2023, the APAC streaming business was put squarely under him, sloughing off marketing and creative services activities in favour of a single-minded focus on streaming. Monteiro reports directly to Perrette. 

Meanwhile, the Asia team is settling into the latest re-org that puts Discovery lifer James Gibbons in charge of a united APAC. In addition to his previous responsibility for Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Gibbons takes over the territories – the awkwardly dubbed INSEAK region – that used to be under Clement Schwebig, who exits for a role in charge of Western Europe and Africa. Gibbons was appointed president/MD of Japan, Aus/NZ in April 2022. He shifted to Singapore this year. If there was an overwhelming response to the latest changes from the change-battered rank and file, it was that they no longer have to say INSEAK to talk about a geographic unit that comprises India, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea.  

At APOS, held just ahead of the latest reorg/s, Perrette described the past decade as one of “great oversupply and great underpricing”. He talked about “a period of rationalisation” and said “the great re-aggregation is well underway”. This aggregation, he added, “is both structural, with consolidation… and then there’s re-aggregation in the re-bundling”. He also highlighted widespread pricing rationalisation, saying: “Unfortunately for the last decade, the industry went on a content oversupply bender”. 

Predicting three to five big global players in the next five to 10 years, in addition to “local champions in individual markets”, Perrette was “very optimistic” that streaming could get to decent margins in the next few years. “While the business is challenged today… our measure of success are different to some others in the industry,” he said, adding: “We have three metrics. We have profitability, we have share, and we have scale. We have always said that we would rather be profitable and in fewer households than have more households and be losing billions of dollars.” 

▶ Published in ContentAsia October 2023 magazine