HBO will reportedly lose about 5 million viewers due to its decision to drop out of Amazon's Channels program.
Besides its own offerings, the Amazon Channels program enables the company to sell other streaming services such as hit shows from HBO, Showtime, Starz and Sundance TV to its viewers within Prime Video.
The 5 million subscriber loss may impact the WarnerMedia Studios-owned network's growth in the current quarter, Bloomberg reported. HBO has about 67.5 million subscribers worldwide across the premium channel and streaming, it added.
Andy Forssell, the general manager of HBO Max, believes it is important for the company to "own the customer". "If the viewer is in the app, we can tailor the home page to them. We can tailor what they show them next. We can respond to that in real time," he told Bloomberg.
Forssell, however, said that dropping out of Channels will not stop the service from hitting its year-end target of more than 70 million subscribers.
HBO's parent WarnerMedia in November 2020 announced that it wants a "direct relationship" with HBO and HBO Max users. However, the company has not yet announced a specific date for when it will exit the Amazon Channels program.
WarnerMedia is trying to build a subscriber base for HBO Max, and therefore wants to remove some avenues that allow people to watch the normal HBO channel online, such as Amazon Prime video channels.