western world has been removed from HBO Max early this weekalong with some other programs like Raised by wolves and Never, but they won’t go away forever. Instead, these series will be licensed to various streaming services, with a particular focus on free services like Roku Channels or Freevee, According to parent company HBO Warner Bros. Discovery.
These streaming services, known in the industry as FAST (“ad-supported free streaming services”), allow users to watch movies and shows without paying a subscription fee. With smaller budgets for original content, products like Freevee, Roku Channel, Tubi, and Pluto TV often rely on licensing deals from other production companies, which is a niche that Warner Bros. private service.
Of course, for anyone paying attention, this is all part of Warner Bros.’s larger cost-cutting plan. Discovery has been going on for the past few months. The craze around cost-cutting began when Warner Bros. merged with Discovery and CEO David Zaslav took over. Under Zaslav’s supervision, Warner canceled long-running development projects such as Bat girlput into James Gunn and Peter Safran as the new heads of the DC universe, and deleted many series and movies from HBO Max to license them later or just cut the rest and operating costs.
Here’s the full list of things removed from the latest HBO Max selection, which the company says will reappear on future FAST platforms:
- western world
- Never
- Raised by wolves,
- FBoy Island
- legendary
- Looking for Magic Mike
- The head of the class
- Time Traveler’s Wife
Warner Bros. Discovery has yet to announce which platforms the series will port to or when they might be available for review.
