Foxtel & Binge Could Lose Its HBO Crown Jewels Next Year

Ready to pay for another streaming service? Because that’s the reality we’re now staring down the barrel of as reports indicate Max (formerly HBO Max) will land right here in Australia as early as 2025.

Less than a year after Foxtel Group broke out its $2.5 billion war chest to successfully negotiate the renewal of its “multi-year” HBO content exclusivity agreement with Warner Bros Discovery, The Sydney Morning Herald has reported on the latter’s plans for antipodean expansion.

This aligns with an earlier report from Bloomberg outlining Max’s intention to enter Australia (among several other markets) within the next 18 months.

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“If you think about other markets, like the two big Anglo markets — UK and Australia — our content travels extremely well,” Jean-Briac Perrette, Warner Bros Discovery’s Global Head of Streaming & Games, recently said at a Morgan Stanley Investor Conference.

“We know how well our content does on both existing legacy platforms, and it drives a significant amount of the viewership. So the demand is there, and there’s unquestionably easy access because ultimately, we don’t have a huge amount of local originals we have to invest in. There’s not a lot of other costs.”

“When we look at the next 12, 18, 24 months, we have all of our four biggest HBO tent poles: House of the Dragon season 2 coming in June, next year we’ll have The Last of Us season 2, Euphoria season 3; White Lotus season 3.”

Then there’s the matter of predicted hits such as Robert Downey Jr’s passion project The Sympathizer, the Dune spin-off series featuring Aussie thespian Travis Fimme, as well as The Batman spin-off series centred on Colin Farrell’s Penguin.

Perrette added that the company would be “crazy not to do it” and simply “leaving money on the table” with its current license deals.

Still, a defined timeline for the HBO catalogue’s grand exodus from Foxtel Group’s cable programming and streaming platform(s) has yet to be confirmed. Though it’s certainly in the Rupert Murdoch-owned empire’s best interest that the process is delayed as much as possible; keep in mind that “multi-year” could simply entail two, meaning potentially the end of 2025 for the existing contract.

As The Sydney Morning Herald points out, Binge — which boasts approximately 1.47 million subscribers at the time of this writing — has been stagnating in growth over the past year. One can only imagine the impact losing its most prominent selling point will have, especially considering the limited UX it offers when compared to the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+.

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And given Foxtel Group’s latest venture in the streaming bundle Hubbl, the partnership could very well find a second life in which both the domestic and international players notch a win (i.e. Foxtel/Binge keeps getting a taste of the action, Max reaches scale right from the jump).

Plus it’s worth noting that both Foxtel Group and Warner Bros Discovery have maintained they would preserve “future flexibility” when it came to sharing our sunburnt nation.

Keep an eye out here for potential updates on Max (formerly HBO Max) hitting Australia.

Curious about what else is coming to the streaming giants?

Check out everything coming to Netflix Australia and everything coming to Amazon Prime Video Australia.

If it’s feature-length entertainment you’re after, check out the best movies on Netflix Australia right now and the best movies on Amazon Prime Video Australia right now.  

And if you’re looking to add to your streaming stack, take a look at our round-up on the best streaming services in Australia. 

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