This isn’t at all surprising, but I think a piece of me hoped that WarnerMedia would stay out of the streaming competition, especially since its own subsidiary, DC, has just recently launched a streaming service of its own in the form of DC Universe. But where there’s money to be made, studios will flock, and it’s very clear that there is little future and putting your own material on third-party streaming services like Netflix.

While at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in Los Angeles, WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey unveiled their plans to enter the streaming competition against the likes of Netflix and Disney, the latter of which will be launching its own streaming service late next year. Interestingly enough, WarnerMedia’s own service will also launch by the end of 2019, so the timetable is pretty similar.

But how will this service be presented? In a weird way. According to a report from Variety, it will be fronted by HBO, meaning that you’ll buy an HBO service, and that it will come with additional bundles, depending on which WarnerMedia brands you want to add on. As far as pricing goes, that’s still not clear, but it will be more expensive than the $14.99 price tag of HBO Now (which is already pretty darn expensive, in my opinion).

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If you’re worried there will be no original content for the service, it sounds like you shouldn’t be, as the spend on content will be competitive to Netflix’s $8 billion.

“This is another benefit of the AT&T/Time Warner merger,” Stankey said in a statement. “And we are committed to launching a compelling and competitive product that will serve as a complement to our existing businesses and help us to expand our reach by offering a new choice for entertainment with the WarnerMedia collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation.”

All I can say is BOOOOOO to this service! In a world where we’re getting nickel-and-dimed for everything out there, this is the last thing I wanted to hear. This is especially bad since DC Universe is a thing. Were DC Universe to be a part of this new initiative from WarnerMedia, I’d have a different opinion, but as it stands, this is just another big company jumping on the bandwagon.

So get ready to add WarnerMedia onto the already long list of streaming subscriptions. Now, all we need to do is throw them all on an island and watch them fight to the death (My bet’s on Netflix).

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SOURCE: Variety