The landscape of streaming has transformed over the past year. Legacy media companies that plowed billions into growing direct-to-consumer operations are now facing profitability pressure from Wall Street, restive consumers ready to cycle on and off services for particular shows and continued competition from cash-rich tech players with their own agendas for growing subscription businesses.
This month saw a previous wave of consolidation become real. Warner Bros. Discovery officially rolled out Max, which combines the libraries of HBO Max and Discovery+, on Tuesday. The day before, Paramount revealed that the previously announced integration of Paramount+ and Showtime would take place on June 27.