HBO Go Will Be Discontinued In Favor Of HBO Max And A Renamed HBO Now

There are times when things are confusing. And then there’s HBO.

AT&T
T
’s WarnerMedia on Friday announced that it’s discontinuing its HBO Go app on July 31. After that date, there will be two HBO streaming apps — the company’s new HBO Max and a rebranded HBO Now app it’ll simply call HBO.

The move seems to make sense at first blush. After all, who really needs three HBO apps? But there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

Before the HBO Max launch last month, HBO operated two services — HBO Go and HBO Now. HBO Go was the free app users could download to their device of choice and, as long as they had an active HBO subscription through their cable or satellite provider, they could stream the network’s content to HBO Go.

HBO Now, meanwhile, was a paid service that cost $15 per month for access to HBO programming. It’s been designed for cord-cutters that don’t have a cable or satellite subscription.

When HBO Max launched last month, it added a third option. HBO Max offers all of HBO’s content, but adds Warner Bros. content and popular 1990s sitcom Friends, among others. For those who had an HBO Now subscription (on supported devices), HBO Now was automatically converted to HBO Max.

In a statement justifying its latest move, WarnerMedia said that nothing will change for HBO Now subscribers, except that they will have the same app with a new name. HBO Go subscribers, however, will need to sign up for HBO Max.

“Most customers who have traditionally used HBO GO to stream HBO programming are now able to do so via HBO Max, which offers access to all of HBO together with so much more,” the company said.

But that’s not quite a solution.

For one, HBO Go users are those who already subscribe to HBO on their cable or satellite services. Are they now supposed to sign up for HBO Max in addition to HBO on their televisions and pay twice for the same content (and a little bit more beyond it)?

Needless to say, that may not go over well.

But there’s another problem: HBO Max isn’t available on Roku or Amazon Fire TV products, which, as CNET points out, is about 70% of the home set-top box market. HBO Go, however, is available on those devices. All those who have Roku or Fire TV boxes will be out of luck on August 1, and will either need to get a new set-top box or live without HBO.

Of course, with the amount of time between now and the end of July, there’s plenty of opportunity for AT&T’s WarnerMedia to address the questions and find a solution. But to say this is causing confusion would be an understatement. And it may prove troublesome for HBO Max adoption as that confusion persists.