Warner Bros. Discovery finished the second quarter of 2023 with 95.8 million direct-to-consumer subscribers, resulting in a decrease of 1.8 million when compared to the end of the previous quarter.
One of the big events that took place during the second quarter of 2023 was the relaunch of HBO Max as Max. Along with the new name and look, the new Max service also brought with it a lot of Discovery Plus content.
With a merging of the two services, it was somewhat to be expected that a subscriber decline might be encountered, as homes realize that they don’t need to continue subscribing to both, and that appears to be what has happened.
The total number of DTC subscribers stood at 95.8 million, as of June 30, 2023, and according to the WBD’s latest earnings report. This is a reduction of around 1.8 million when compared to the 97.6 million reported at the end of the first quarter of this year. At the same time, it is an increase of around 3.6 million when compared to the second quarter of last year.
A similar pattern can be seen for the domestic market. Warner Bros. Discovery reported 54 million domestic DTC subscribers for the end of Q2, and this represented a decrease of 1.3 million when compared to the 55.3 million reported at the end of Q1.
Again, similar to the global figures, this did also result in an increase of 0.9 million subscribers when compared to the same quarter of the year before.
It is worth noting that, as Max launched on May 23rd, mid-way through Q2, we won’t get a full quarterly picture of how the new Max era is performing until the next quarterly results are released later in the year.
Start the conversation