For nearly three decades, ever since its first original drama Oz landed in 1997, HBO has been shorthand for prestige television. It’s the place that delivered The Wire, Succession, and a long list of series that shaped modern TV. When news broke that Netflix is set to acquire Warner Bros.—and with it, the network behind the forever popular The Sopranos—fans started to panic. Would the streaming giant flatten the brand that helped define the “golden age” of television? Would the broader streaming machine swallow the Home Box Office identity? Would Netflix enshittify HBO?
Netflix’s Co-CEO Ted Sarandos says no. Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference (via Deadline), Sarandos pushed back on the idea that HBO is about to lose what makes it special. Instead, he framed the deal as an opportunity for the premium TV brand to sharpen its focus further. He explained to attendees:
This is a prestige television brand that people really love. I would say that they have been doing gymnastics to make themselves into a general entertainment brand, and I think under this transaction, they don’t have to do that anymore.
He’s responding to a fear that’s grown louder in recent years: that streaming platforms eventually “enshittify.” The term, also called platform decay, describes how once-great services slide in quality while raising prices and padding their catalogs with forgettable content. If you think back to the early Netflix subscription model, when they mailed out DVDs and charged eight bucks a month, the service felt fresh—even in the early streaming years, it had that spark. But now, at nearly $20 a month, the algorithm-driven platform sometimes feels like a digital bargain bin. There’s plenty to scroll through, but not much that feels essential.
That pattern is what has HBO loyalists nervous. The premium cable network has raised prices for its HBO Max subscription, too, but the value has usually matched the cost. Even when Warner Bros. Discovery folded HBO Max into Max and blended in reality shows, sports, and lighter fare, the HBO name still carried weight. It meant something
So when the Big Red N stepped in with its bid for Warner Bros., fans braced for the worst. Would the Warner-owned network be forced to chase the kind of broad, anywhere-from-excellent-to-forgettable content that fills so much of Netflix’s lineup? Would the drive for volume over vision dilute the brand that built the modern prestige model?
Sarandos insists the opposite. In his view:
We’re already a very well established general entertainment brand, and we want HBO to double down on the things that people have loved for 50 years about HBO… assets work better in our business model and our business model works better with these assets.
According to the top Brass at Netflix, the Emmy magnet won’t have to stretch itself thin trying to serve every audience. Instead, they will allow HBO to stay HBO: a label people trust for high-end storytelling, even if it means fewer shows.
Still, reassurance only goes so far. Netflix has a well-documented habit of canceling promising series early based on algorithms instead of viewership, and its push for global, fast-turnaround programming sometimes clashes with the slow, meticulous process behind HBO hits. Fans know that a change in ownership can reshape a studio in ways no executive soundbite can fully capture.
For now, though, Sarandos appears to be trying to calm the waters. And until the deal closes, that’s about all anyone can do. We longtime fans will have to wait and watch closely to see whether or not HBO gets the freedom Netflix is promising—or becomes the next chapter in streaming’s long trend toward enshittification.
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