WarnerMedia has launched a new plan for their HBO Max subscribers. You can now simply pay $9.99 per month and start viewing your favourite films and TV series on the portal. Well, there is a small catch. The new plan supports advertisements. So, if you are not bothered about being stopped by incessant ads every few minutes, the plan is surely for you. Considering you can now avail of the subscription at a lesser price than before, what they are asking for is not much.
The regular subscription costs $14.99 per month. It can now be classified as the premium subscription, since you will not be bogged with ads. The freshly-launched one is priced at 33 per cent less to be precise. HBO Max has also assured that they will only be airing ads for a total of four minutes in an hour. Apart from this, today, the company is set to launch another plan for their loyal customers. Those who purchase the HBO Max subscription for a year will get the same at a discounted price. You will have to play 16 per cent less than the actual value. The ad-supported yearly subscription would cost you $99.99 per annum and the one without ads would come to $149.99 per annum.
HBO Max EVP and general manager Andy Forssell said in a statement, “Advertising is a time-tested way to reduce the cost of great entertainment and reach a wider audience. We’ve worked hard to create an elegant, tasteful ad experience that is respectful of great storytelling for those users who choose it, and which we’re confident will deliver for our advertising partners as well.”
However, subscribing to the lower tier plan does come with some disadvantages. You will not be able to download your films and TV series for offline viewing. All the films produced by the Warner Bros. that release online and in the theaters on the same day, will not be available for people with the ad-supported plan. This is going to be the norm for the entire stretch of 2021. If there are discrepancies between the release dates, the content will be available on HBO Max lower tier plan. The third and the last big difference between the lower and the higher tier plan is for the quality nerds. The plan without ads gets a high resolution of 4K Ultra HD. On the other hand, those with the plan with ads get the viewing resolution capped at 1080p.
HBO Max promises to display ads lesser than its competitors. Hulu has done something similar in the past as well. While the Hulu regular plan costs you $11.99 per month, they came up with a lower tier plan to rope in more people. The cheaper one shows ads and costs $5.99 a month. What kinds of ads can you expect to see on HBO Max? The company says that subscribers can expect “a greater personalization in the ads they see” over time, with “more innovation in formats to come.”
Long after The Game of Thrones got over, HBO Max is managing to stay at the top of the news charts with these declarations. Considering the online portal is known for hosting exceptional-quality original content, it will be interesting to see how the subscription numbers increase or decrease because of the newly-added cheaper plan. Saving $5 per month and still getting to view the same content, is not that bad a deal after all. The ad experience kicks off this month with more than 35 brands at launch.
