Warner Bros. Discovery CEO Slams Streaming Services As ‘Terrible’ For Users

Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO says that streaming services, like his company’s HBO Max, make the TV experience “terrible.” David Zaslav became the CEO and president of Discovery, Inc. in 2006 and remained in charge after that company merged with WarnerMedia. As a result, he has been the CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery, the company that controls HBO Max, since April 2022.

HBO Max is currently the home of several shows with near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes scores, including Band of Brothers, The Wire, Hacks, Watchmen, The Sopranos, Chernobyl, and The Penguin. However, Warner Bros. Discovery has made several controversial moves under Zaslav, including canceling the release of Coyote vs. Acme. Seemingly never afraid of controversy, Zaslav has now spoken out against the streaming service landscape.

While speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Zaslav commented on the current state of streaming services. He stated his belief that because there are too many streaming services, they’ve become frustrating for users. He pointed out that users now have to do research to figure out what streaming service to use to watch specific shows or movies.

The marketplace is really challenged with too many players in the market. When people turn on — the consumers put on their TV, it’s a terrible consumer experience. In almost every market in the world, there’s just way too many choices. And you’re googling, ‘Where is it? How do I get from one to the other? How do I get into that platform?’

At the same event, Zaslav also commented on a change that will be coming to HBO Max users. After touting how good the content on the streaming service is, the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO stated that the price to be subscribed to HBO Max will soon be going up.

The fact that this is quality — and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production and and streaming quality — we all we think that gives us a chance to raise price. We think we’re way underpriced. We’re going to take our time.

Zaslav also notably discussed his belief that the company wants users to organically come to love HBO Max. He then explained that the company intends to follow in the footsteps of other streaming services by trying to stop their users from sharing passwords.

We haven’t been pushing on the password sharing and the economics yet. People are really starting to love HBO Max. That’s the key. We want them to fall in love with our content, with our series, with the differentiated offering outside of the U.S. It’s all tricky with the password sharing. We’re going to begin to push on that.

What This Means For Streaming Services

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As the CEO of a major media company, it is Zaslav’s job to identify the weaknesses of the business. Still, the idea that the CEO of a company who has a streaming service as a huge element of its business being so blunt about the problems with them is somewhat shocking.

Still, the truth is that Zaslav’s comments about why the streaming service experience is “terrible” likely won’t have any effect, at least anytime soon. When there is so much money on the line, it seems very safe to assume that each major media company will want to cash in by having their own streaming service.

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To Zaslav’s point, it truly is frustrating that streaming service users have to search online to discover where they can watch a show or movie they are interested in. That becomes even more frustrating when the content you want to watch is on a service you’re not subscribed to.

There are other frustrating aspects about the streaming service model that Zaslav didn’t mention. For example, users also have to cope with the frustration that streaming service content can be wildly different based on where they live. Worse yet, some streaming services aren’t even available in some regions.

On the other hand, there are aspects of the popularity of streaming services that are great. Most importantly, more content is being produced and released than ever before. At the same time, Zaslav’s company has been trying to limit how much content is available on HBO Max, which adds another layer to his comments.