HBO Is Leaving Amazon Prime Video

Beginning on September 15, anybody who as soon as subscribed to HBO through their Amazon Prime Video account can have their subscription terminated as a part of a deal lower by HBO’s mother or father firm, WarnerMedia, to take away the channel from Prime Video’s Channels service.

Previously, a placement deal that secured HBO’s presence within the Amazon Channels retailer had allowed customers to entry common HBO programming inside the Amazon Fire TV consumer interface, permitting prospects to simply enroll by way of their Amazon accounts. But that deal had resulted in a “major sticking point” throughout negotiations when it got here to getting HBO Max, the corporate’s major streaming service, its personal app on the Amazon Fire TV platform—main WarnerMedia to yank HBO from “channels” totally in an effort to chop out the intermediary.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the exodus will quantity to roughly 5 million canceled subscriptions for HBO, which had beforehand allowed customers to individually subscribe through Amazon’s third-party channels platform for $15 a month. But that loss can be value it, WarnerMedia has reasoned, if it would imply shifting to permit HBO Max to change into the first entry level for subscribers who wish to entry its proprietary streaming content material.

In an interview with Bloomberg in August, Andy Forssell, the chief government over at HBO Max, mentioned {that a} short-term culling is sensible in the long term if it would imply that the corporate can consolidate entry with the intention to domesticate a extra direct relationship with shoppers.

“It’s important for us to own the customer,” Forssell mentioned. “If the viewer is in the app, we can tailor the home page to them. We can tailor what they show them next. We can respond to that in real time.”

As a part of the settlement reached between WarnerMedia and Amazon, HBO Max will now be out there to entry as a standalone app on Amazon Fire TV gadgets, and anybody who bought an HBO subscription by way of the channels platform can have their HBO Max entry rolled over for no extra value. According to an unnamed WarnerMedia government who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, anybody who has had an HBO subscription canceled by way of Amazon can be eligible for a pro-rated refund based mostly on their final billing cycle, and also will be eligible to obtain an unspecified particular supply after their subscriptions are canceled.