'Max' for short: Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly looking at cutting HBO from streaming name

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HBO Max's parent is looking at a bigger streaming service with a somewhat shorter name: just "Max," CNBC says.

Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) has been planning to combine WarnerMedia's HBO Max service with Discovery+ into one big streaming offering, due in the spring. And lawyers are examining going with the name Max, according to the report.

That vetting suggests that it will be the likely name, though the lawyers are also checking others, and internally the code name "BEAM" is being used, CNBC says.

While HBO has longtime brand equity, some executives are worried about diluting that value if HBO were conflated with everything available on the service, according to the report - lots of non-HBO content now, and even more when Discovery+ gets added in.

Meanwhile, HBO's brand power is highly U.S.-focused, rather than worldwide.

The new platform will likely take the same approach as Disney+ (DIS) at putting large groups of content under "tiles" tied to particular WBD brands, according to the report. That means including landing "hubs" for HBO, Discovery, DC Comics and Warner Bros.

The company had long planned to merge its two separate major streaming services, to go along with the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery in April. On Warner Bros. Discovery's Nov. 3 earnings call, CEO David Zaslav said a planned launch would now come in spring 2023 rather than in the summer.