WarnerMedia is rolling out a $10-a-month ad supported version of its HBO Max streaming service starting in June.
That's $5 off the current price for the ad-free version, which launched in May 2020. And cheaper than Netflix, which charges $14 a month for its most popular plan.
AT&T said Monday it will combine its massive WarnerMedia media assets, which includes HBO and CNN, with Discovery Inc. to create a new media company in a $43 billion deal. However the transaction isn't expected to close until mid-2022, and WarnerMedia is still going ahead with plans for HBO Max.
AT&T said earlier this month that there are 44.2 million subscribers to HBO Max and the traditional HBO channel combined in the U.S.
A bevy of streaming services have launched as people shift to watching TV online rather than via traditional cable packages.
Disney Plus, which launched in 2019, charges $8 a month and has amassed more than 100 million subscribers. Netflix remains the service to beat with more than 200 million subscribers globally.
HBO Max offers viewers shows from HBO such as "Game of Thrones," movies including "Wonder Woman" and "Godzilla vs. Kong" and originals such as the show "Made for Love."
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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