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Historically, the upfronts are a banner time for the tv business. Each spring, main networks current their wares to advertisers, hoping to promote airtime for prime greenback. This yr, although, the upfronts are occurring amid a strike by the Writers Guild of America, and a lot of the occasions have occurred with picket strains gathered exterior. Netflix canceled their in-person occasion and held the presentation virtually. 

By the time Jon Steinlauf, head of US advert gross sales for Warner Bros. Discovery, took the stage two days in the past for his firm’s yearly stump speech, he was prepared to handle the elephant within the room: “What you’re about to see is not exactly the show we expected to do today. We made the decision to only have executives on stage out of respect for our talent and the WGA.” 

Like lots of the different upfronts this week, WBD’s presentation stored the deal with non-scripted content material: sporting occasions, information, docuseries. But not like the opposite networks, WBD—the results of a merger between Warner Media and Discovery—was simply days away from certainly one of their greatest strikes but, one thing they had been about to place extra advertising {dollars} behind than the rest within the firm’s historical past: the rebooting of HBO Max as simply Max.

It’s nearly laborious to recollect now however HBO Max launched on the top of Covid-19 lockdowns, in May 2020. It felt like the very best, and worst, time to launch a streaming service. Everyone was caught at house and dying for brand new content material to look at—however so had been all of the individuals who make TV exhibits and flicks. The service had an amazing again catalog however couldn’t promise an excessive amount of new content material past what had been made previous to launch. 

On Tuesday, May 23, nearly precisely three years later, it’s delivering a brand new service that mixes what Max already has with that of Discovery+, however can be dealing with a writers strike that’s put a whole lot of productions on maintain. “I am hopeful that a fair resolution is found soon with the writers that would, of course, return talent to this stage,” HBO and Max CEO Casey Bloys stated in the course of the upfront. “Until then, you’re kind of stuck with me and my clips.” 

In the grand scheme, a streaming service altering its identify from a predictably milquetoast one to 1 even much less descript isn’t very noteworthy. But now there’s one more main bump within the rollout of Max, a highway that’s already plagued by potholes. And whereas it might look like HBO is cursed to have horrible timing, there are issues the corporate may do to keep away from these roadblocks. For starters, it may push the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to make a cope with the WGA, whose members picketed exterior the WBD upfront presentation on the Theater at Madison Square Garden, holding indicators that learn “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me, ‘It’s streaming,’” and chanting “When I say ‘AI’ you say ‘bye-bye.’”