How Canadians view HBO programming — and much else in the future battle for TV eyeballs north of the U.S. border — is up for grabs after Paramount Skydance, owner of Paramount+, won a bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, home to HBO Max.
Paramount’s David Ellison has talked about merging HBO Max and Paramount+ into one streaming service after completing the WBD acquisition. That prospect, set to mark a major turning point for a fast-evolving Canadian TV landscape, could see local private broadcasters dependent on American imports to drive profits even more sidelined as U.S. streaming giants like Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ increase their cross-border dominance.
Looking to keep pace, HBO Max and Comcast’s Peacock chose to license their content to local broadcasters and digital platforms, rather than go direct to Canadians with their U.S.-based digital platforms. That had local media player Bell Media signing a multiyear program supply agreement with WBD for HBO Max and HBO fare to feature on its homegrown Crave streaming platform.
But with WBD headed to Paramount post-merger, Bell Media will face a far different terrain on which to renew its supply agreement to keep HBO Max series on Crave. That deal was struck in May 2023 and last renewed in Oct. 2024.
“In addition to the best entertainment, news, and select sports storytelling in Canada, Crave remains home of HBO and HBO Max programming in Canada through a long-term deal with Warner Bros. Discovery for the foreseeable future,” Bell Media said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, without indicating how long the current supply agreement with the WBD subsidiary will last.
Paramount Canada offered no comment when asked about a potential combination of HBO Max and Paramount+ north of the border. That’s as U.S. streamers increasingly command TV ad revenue and viewing in Canada and potentially combining Paramount+ and HBO Max would only accelerate that dominance.
Going over the top into the Canadian market also aims to allow U.S. streamers to better control the local distribution of their content to sign up and retain digital subscribers. That in turn challenges Canadian broadcasters to offer their own American content that dominates primetime viewing north of the border and to manage their own customer bases as cord cutting and shifting TV viewership impacts their business models.
In the Canadian market, Rogers Sports and Media signed a multiyear deal with WBD from Jan. 1, 2025 to acquire the Canadian rights to popular lifestyle and factual channel brands like HGTV, Food Network and OWN after the properties had been with Bell Media and Corus Entertainment. Besides its own countrywide cable TV network, Rogers distributes the U.S. channels and programming across other major Canadian cable TV providers, and Citytv+ and Discovery+.
“We’re proud to continue offering these beloved brands – Discovery, Food Network, HGTV, Magnolia Network and Investigation Discovery – and this great content to Canadian audiences,” a spokesperson for Rogers Sports and Media told THR in a statement. There’s no word on how long the current channel deal with WBD runs to after its first year.
Elsewhere, THR hasn’t heard back after reaching out to Corus Entertainment about potential local impact from the WBD merger deal on the Paramount-owned free, ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV, which expanded into Canada in 2022 via the private broadcaster.