Two years ago, almost to the day, David Zaslav merged his smaller and scrappier Discovery Communications with the historic assets of WarnerMedia, thus embarking on a long debt and integration journey familiar to all of us at Puck. As part of the deal, of course, Zaz and his brain trust announced that HBO Max and Discovery+ would be rolled up to create a mega-streamer that could ostensibly compete with Netflix and Disney+. Then, a year ago this month, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that HBO Max would drop the premium cable network’s acronym from its name, and become the incomparably blander “Max.” 

The strategy reflected a belief that HBO, despite being perhaps the most august brand in the history of American television, was too elite, too coastal—more Curb Your Enthusiasm than Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives—to truly scale. And on some level, the Max rebranding seemed like an attempt to preserve the sanctity of HBO while alleviating pressure to grow that business into something unrecognizable.