The Maximum Password Sharing campaign is set to start

J.B. Perrett, President and CEO, Global Broadcast and Games, Warner Bros. Discovery.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Max will become the latest to cut back on password sharing, as Warner Bros. plans Discovery to begin its campaign in late 2024 through 2025.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference, JB Perrette, President and CEO of Global Broadcast and Games at Warner Bros., announced: Discovery, announced plans to limit password sharing, pointing to Netflix's campaign, which it said was “implemented very successfully.” It's all part of WBD's multi-part plan to make streaming profits.

“We'll be doing this starting later this year through '25, which is another growth opportunity for us,” Perrett said of the password-sharing campaign.

Asked how big of a revenue opportunity the password-sharing campaign represents, Perrett said it was a “meaningful opportunity,” but was cautious about “overselling it” given the comparison between Netflix's 260 million subscribers and a longer history with Max's 97.7 million subscribers.

“I'm mindful not to oversell because you see the success of Netflix. Netflix has been in the market for 17 years. That means people have been sharing passwords for 17 years. We've been in the market for four years, if you count the launch of HBO Max, and obviously “We're not quite on the same scale. But we think it's a meaningful opportunity, given the size of our business.”

WBD reported full-year streaming profits for 2023, a rarity among Hollywood media conglomerates, but in the fourth quarter, the streaming segment posted a $55 million loss in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, compared with last year. -Previous loss of $217 million.

The goal is to maintain a consistent profit in the segment, which Perrett said the company believes it can achieve through greater globalization, given that 80 percent of the company's revenues are still based in the United States, as well as expanding the advertising layer, which was launched in The United States, to Europe and Latin America.

Additionally, he noted that the content slate will improve over the next 18 to 24 months, which includes the second season of the series. Dragon House In June and next year, the second season of the last of us, Season two of tranceand the third season of White lotus.

“Unfortunately, we launched Max in the US and in the following eight months, for a variety of reasons – some of which we know of, some of which have to do with the hit – we entered into perhaps our lightest content slate ever.” He said.

While Netflix was the first streaming company to launch a password crackdown, which helped translate into an increase of 13 million new subscribers last quarter, Disney also said it would begin enacting a password-sharing policy.

Disney has already updated its subscriber agreement for Disney+, as well as Hulu, to ban account sharing for new subscribers starting January 25, and for existing subscribers starting March 14. Last month, Disney CFO Hugh Johnston said that starting this summer, Disney+ would be canceled and account holders would be “provided with new capabilities” that would allow account participants to start their own subscriptions.