HBO Max Lands – How Will It Change TV in New Zealand?

On June 16, HBO Max launched in New Zealand. The service offers a huge catalogue of its prestige TV shows, as well as blockbuster films, new series, and unscripted shows. Kiwi viewers may have already become familiar with HBO through Sky and Neon, but now HBO Max has moved to its own platform. It is also available through Prime Video.

HBO’s own series

HBO is largely known for its own series, many of which have dedicated, sometimes-rabid fan followings: The Sopranos, The Wire, Game of Thrones, and in more recent years The Last of Us, The White Lotus, and Euphoria have been almost universally adored by viewers and critics. The Sopranos is widely credited with elevating television to a realm similar to film; previously the top tier of actors, writers, directors and behind the scenes staff largely reserved their talents for cinema. 

James Gandolfini, Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli and the rest of the cast – along with writing talent like David Chase, Robin Green, Mitchel Burgess, and Terence Winter – were praised for changing the perception of what TV could do. The Sopranos’ influence was seen in later HBO shows like Succession, which won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.

The Wire received similar acclaim; it is ranked as the sixth best TV show of all time by IMDb users. David Simon and his staff initially struggled to find an audience for the “anti-cop show” (as it was called by The Guardian), but by the time of The Wire’s final episode in 2008, it was adored. Both The Sopranos and The Wire are available on HBO Max in their entirety.

How might HBO Max change TV in New Zealand?

The entertainment industry has drastically changed this century, and even in the 2020s, not least due to the advent of streaming. Industry reports estimate that Netflix has around 1.3 million subscribers in New Zealand; it’s the top streaming service in the country, ahead of Amazon Prime and Disney.

HBO Max hopes its New Zealand launch will be boosted by the release of a new House of the Dragon season and the Big Bang Theory spinoff Stuart Fails to Save the Universe. Lanterns, a new superhero series, will arrive later in August.

Head of Content at Prime Video Australia and New Zealand, Alexandra Gilbert, said the company was thrilled to welcome Max to Prime Video. It becomes their 26th subscription offering in New Zealand, joining Amazon MGM Originals like The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power.

By putting major series like House of the Dragon on its own dedicated platform – while still offering The White Lotus, Euphoria, and the rest – HBO Max gives Kiwi viewers more of a reason to subscribe around specific shows, rather than staying loyal to one all-purpose service. The test will be whether it changes viewing habits in a significant way. If HBO Max keeps launching headline titles in line with the US, and if its Prime Video distribution makes sign-ups more common, it could encourage more people toward stacking subscriptions.

In that sense, HBO Max is unlikely to replace Netflix overnight, but it could become a challenger. The service topped 1.5 million subscribers in its first 5 days in the UK. Ampere Analysis found that HBO Max had the fastest start of any streaming platform to pass a million subscribers. The research company attributed much of that success to Sky, with 77% of Max activations coming from Sky or Now TV households.

Just 12% of HBO Max newcomers cancelled another service in March before signing up. That suggests the subscriptions will keep adding up.