#mostly just venting about how weirdos will makea fb post about something that sounds plausible enough

[notallbloodmages]

This guy deleted his post off FB - presumably because people were pointing out that this isn't how it works. The post itself isn't bad, it's just that we don't need to make up reasons to support a strike that already has a ton of true reasons.

While I appreciate that this sounds plausible, WB is straight-up cutting programs from their services to save $$$ on residuals (allegedly). No name change needed for that. In addition, the strike is (along with other equally important issues) because many services are just not paying residuals at all because it's not on a "channel," and streaming online "doesn't count." There are absolutely byzantine loopholes regarding streaming vs. an actual television channel. But "Max" is still airing HBO content along with Discovery content, and changing the name of the thing doesn't change which company is streaming them in the first place. So if residuals were owed as long as a show remained on HBO, Max still counts as HBO because it is the same thing. I don't doubt that HBO knows how to skirt contracts or anything of course, but again a big part of the strike is streaming services not paying residuals in the first place.

The reason for the name change is more likely to be because this is what brands do all the time. Their thing doesn't shit money, so they re-brand in hopes that a new name and/or look will make customers suddenly go gaga for whatever they're shilling. Worst case it'll at least make the news and we all know any attention is good attention according to these ghouls. Zaslav claims that it's to make their original content stand out from old HBO content or acquired content, and to coincide with the packaging of Discovery+ with HBO content, but that sounds like bullshit.

Less important - the name doesn't sound stupid for sounding "like a knockoff of Cinemax," because Cinemax is literally an HBO-owned service and part of the choice to go with "Max" was because people already know Cinemax. It was a deliberate choice to conjure Cinemax with the name. It's stupid because it's the 4th name change for HBOs streaming service(s) and a single word is meaningless an deveryone is still going to call it HBOMax anyway.

PLEASE correct me if I am wrong either technically or completely, or feel free to say what I said but clearer/with better details. If I got it wrong, I will accept that with grace so please don't be a dick about correcting me. This is a tumblr post not a phd submission. It's hard to look this stuff up right this second because every news source is reporting on Zaslav basically jerking himself off over how smart and cool he is at branding, and I am also very sleepy. But I could not find a single source saying that HBO wouldn't owe residuals because of a name change.