Parent company Warner Bros. Discovery is said to be cutting costs again.
It is possible that your monthly bill for cable streaming services will increase once more. It has been claimed that Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is set to carry out yet another price rise for Max. According to Bloomberg, the amount by which WBD is anticipated to increase the subscription rate was not disclosed. At the moment, the most affordable ad-free plan costs $16 per month, which is an increase of $1 from the beginning of 2023. In the coming year, it is rumored that WBD intends to achieve a revenue of one billion dollars via Max and Discovery+.
Even as early as Thursday, we might learn about any potential increase in the price of Max. The earnings report for the first three months of the year will be submitted by WBD at that time.
As part of what appears to be an ongoing effort to reduce costs, WBD may be planning to implement the price rise in the near future. A further round of layoffs might be on the horizon as a consequence of this. almost the course of the past year, the organization has terminated the employment of almost 2,000 individuals and abolished their roles.
Almost immediately after the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery in 2022, which resulted in the formation of WBD, CEO David Zazlav immediately moved into aggressive cost-cutting mode. This was due to the fact that the business was loaded with more than $50 billion in debt. The business swiftly terminated the recently launched CNN+, terminated employees, canceled projects, transferred episodes and movies from Max to ad-supported streaming platforms, and delayed movies that were either done or quite close to being finished in order to take advantage of tax savings.
According to Bloomberg, Zazlav has lowered the amount of debt that WBD is carrying by approximately $10 billion thus far. His policies, on the other hand, have upset creatives as well as a large number of fans. For example, there are fans who are demanding that the firm release the highly appreciated live-action Looney Tunes picture Coyote vs. Acme rather than canning it in order to receive a tax rebate.
On Wednesday, Variety published a list of the compensation packages that would be offered to CEOs in the media and technology industries in 2023. It has been reported that Zazlav’s salary has increased by 26.5 percent, reaching a total of $49.7 million. This is approximately 290 times the value of the median salary of a WBD employee.