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Can HBO Max Keep Up the Energy in the Crowded World of Streaming?

With people around the globe continuing to cut the cable cord at unprecedented levels, the world of streaming is experiencing a bona fide explosion. Services are popping up and down the spectrum of media companies, from tried-and-true juggernauts like NBC to upstarts and the cemented new-age goliaths like Netflix. HBO is one of those legacy…

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With people around the globe continuing to cut the cable cord at unprecedented levels, the world of streaming is experiencing a bona fide explosion. Services are popping up and down the spectrum of media companies, from tried-and-true juggernauts like NBC to upstarts and the cemented new-age goliaths like Netflix.

HBO is one of those legacy networks getting in on the action, and its HBO Max platform has seen tremendous success since its inception. 2020 was an enormous year for the service, which wrapped the fourth quarter of last year with more than 17 million activated users, bringing its total subscribers to nearly 38 million.

To find out if AT&T, which owns HBO Max, should be pleased with that growth and whether it’s truly sustainable, host and Voice of B2B Daniel Litwin invited NYU Stern School of Business Adjunct Professor Darren Campo to share his insights.

Campo teaches in the Entertainment, Media and Technology program at the Stern School, and also brings with him years of experience as former SVP of Programming Strategy at Food Network and former SVP of Programming, Production and Development for Tru TV. He pulls from those years behind the scenes, as well as from current subscribership numbers and trends among the major streaming platforms, to assess how exactly HBO Max’s growth may continue to unfold.

Litwin and Campo dove into that and much more, including the future of “hybrid” movie releases such as the one “Wonder Woman 1984” enjoyed, how content production has forever changed in the wake of the pandemic, and more.

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