HBO and Max content chief Casey Bloys has explained their weekly release strategy. During a Milken Institute Global Conference panel on the future of the entertainment industry, as reported by Deadline, he claimed that this strategy works for them.
HBO and Max are something of an exception in the industry, still releasing their shows on a predominantly weekly schedule unlike the binge format Netflix championed. Bloys shared that their strategy has been inspired by financial considerations, but that it also doesn't hurt when drawing out a season's release keeps the show in the audience's head longer.
“Part of the reason we do it is we don’t have the ability to have a new series every week. There’s a difference between dropping a new series every week and a new episode. That is a big financial difference,” he explained.
The two platforms are home to some of the internet's most talked-about shows, and word of mouth is built up thanks to the weekly format. Shows like The Last of Us, Succession, and The Pitt found success being released weekly.
This allowed people to freely post about the show online, and created intrigue for season finales. We all tried to work out who died in The White Lotus finale, took to social media to complain about how Game of Thrones ended, and guessed who could become CEO of Waystar in Succession.
“Every week we see the audience grow, and there is an entire ecosystem of people who write about, do podcasts about, discuss TV shows,” Bloys explained, adding that the show’s creators as well as the audience prefer this release format.
HBO and Max have not always stuck to this schedule, previously releasing multiple episodes at a time. They have found this binge watch format more harmful than helpful because the show didn’t have time to “marinate.”
Other streamers like Paramount+ with Showtime have also started following the conventional weekly model. Some networks have also toyed with offering episodes a few days earlier on streaming before airing on their linear channels.
HBO and Max’s weekly release format is clearly working for them
This approach to showing television is clearly working for HBO and Max. According to WSJ, Max added 20 million subscribers in 2024 to finish the year at 117 million global subscribers.
A few years ago, Max was struggling at how to understand how to better appeal against the likes of Prime, Netflix and Disney+. They worked out that Disney+ has the kids corner targeted, so started trying to appeal to the adult TV watcher. “What people want from us in a world where they’ve got Netflix and Amazon are those things that differentiate us,” Bloys said.
As previously mentioned, the huge success of The Pitt proves they are on the right track with linear television. Although the opening episodes earned huge viewing numbers, the show did something rare in the world of television, the audience grew week by week. A show which earned little attention, became a social media phenomenon by the finale.
Bloys explained to Vulture that he was looking for a more "diverse" slate at Max when he decided to roll the dice on The Pitt. “It can’t just be all The Last of Us and House of the Dragon….I’ve got to keep people engaged throughout the year, so you have to look for other things that can do it.” He also added that he was intentional about looking for network-style shows with 15 episodes per season, instead of the now normalized eight episode miniseries'.
When streamers appear to want to find exposition heavy shows so audiences can binge when scrolling on their phones, it looks like there is still a place for network-style procedural shows which air weekly.