When a new streaming service launches in Australia on March 31, it will be a major disruptor in the Australian media market. Max, owned by Warner Bros Discovery, will be the last of the major international streaming services to launch in Australia. When presented with what Max has to offer, a lot of subscribers will think it's just more of the same movies and shows already available on streaming services in Australia. This is what makes the launch of Max so interesting. Yes, it is the last to the party. And yes, it is YASS (yet another streaming service). But it also represents something that is uncomfortably different: Max isn't here to be another streaming service; many subscribers will use it to replace Australian service BINGE. From launch, BINGE has sold itself as the home of HBO in Australia, the upmarket, prestige TV channel owned by Warner Bros Discovery. HBO is synonymous with the best that TV has to offer, with titles like The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Sex & The City, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us. But when Max launches, all of those shows will disappear from the BINGE streaming service and become exclusive to Max. Max is, effectively, the HBO streaming service. It will also have other beloved Warner Bros Television titles like The Big Bang Theory, Rick & Morty, and Friends, along with a huge number of Discovery reality shows. It's a great library of shows and movies, but one that we've mostly had access to for some time now. Yet another streaming service The streaming game really started in Australia 10 years ago. In an effort to get into the market ahead of the then-impending launch of Netflix, Nine kicked things off in a meaningful way with the launch of Stan. With a strong emphasis on original Australian shows and movies, Stan has proven resilient in a market where all of its well-funded international competitors have gobbled up a lot of the more buzzy new titles. Just two months after Stan launched, Netflix came along and made its impact known. It had already launched popular original shows like House of Cards (even if we don't really talk much about that one anymore thanks to the very public fall of series star Kevin Spacey) and Orange Is The New Black. Since then we have seen other international companies like Disney launch locally with Disney+, Amazon with its member-benefit Prime Video, and Paramount with Paramount+. Each of these services have large libraries of older TV shows and movies, along with a seemingly never-ending supply of new things to watch. What hasn't changed with the launch of these streamers is that we still only have 24 hours in every day, so we already have more than we could conceivably watch. What will be on Max? At launch, Max will offer most of the Warner Bros Discovery channels. That includes HBO, Warner Bros, Discovery, Cartoon Network (think Looney Tunes and Powerpuff Girls), TLC, IS, and HGTV. It also includes brands like Harry Potter, the DC Comics superheroes (that includes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash), and Game of Thrones. Interestingly, you'll notice that it doesn't seem to include anything from the Warner-Bros-Discovery-owned CNN. The US Max streaming service offers a live stream of CNN and some sports content, but that hasn't been added to any of the other international territories that Max has launched in. Whether that changes in time will depend on whether CNN is sold off, which is what most media analysts expect will happen in the coming year or two. The big show at launch will be the second season of the hugely successful The Last of Us, which debuts in mid-April. New seasons of And Just Like That, House of The Dragon (the Game of Thrones spin-off), Euphoria, and Peacemaker are also promised to launch later this year (or 2026 in the case of Euphoria). Max also promises to launch with a library of old Hollywood classics from Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Expect titles like Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, and Rebel Without a Cause. This won't be the first time Australia has received TCM, with a branded TCM channel formerly running on Foxtel. What we don't yet know is whether we will see a good mix of older titles, or whether it'll be like the old TCM channel with a static small library where viewers saw the same movies repeated ad nauseum. How does the price compare to other streamers? The price for Max is similar to the prices of the other major streamers. Some pricing tiers are a little more expensive than Disney+, but a bit cheaper than Netflix. The pricing plans also give users similar access its competitors' offers. Max is offering an ad-supported cheaper tier with HD resolution, a standard tier which is also capped at HD, and a premium priced tier that streams at 4K resolution. To BINGE's credit, it has always offered 4K resolution streaming on its standard plans, while most competitors, including Max, restrict 4K streaming to the most expensive plans. With the average TV size at 50 inches in Australia and getting bigger, 4K streaming should be a default resolution and not an upsell if we want the picture on our screens to be clear with limited blur. The question is whether Australians are willing to pay money for yet another streaming service. It is likely many subscribers will see the launch of Max as an opportunity to consider which services they are subscribing to and decide on what value they are getting from them. But up until now, even with cost-of-living pressures mounting in everyday Australian households, the number of subscription services we pay for have been growing in number. The annual Telsyte survey into the local subscription video-on-demand market saw increases for all but one of the leading streaming services. While more people are opting for the cheaper, ad-supported plans, more than 70 per cent of subscribers now have more than one service. With Max offering sought-after content, there's nothing to suggest it will be entering a market that doesn't have room for it. What is the future for BINGE? BINGE isn't shutting down. It continues on, but it isn't unreasonable to say there will be fewer well-known TV shows on the service and that could impact their subscriber numbers. Midway through the year, European sports company DAZN is expected to finalise its purchase of BINGE parent company Foxtel. Declining subscriber numbers will put incredible pressure on the viability of BINGE, which already sits adjacent to the sports focus of the new parent company. The loss of HBO is happening at the worst time for BINGE. It follows the loss of a deal that gave it access to first-run BBC content midway through 2024. Its last big content deal is with NBCUniversal, which gives it access to well-known and beloved shows like Law & Order. All eyes in the industry are on that deal, which is believed to be up for renewal later this year. Going forward, shows will be acquired on more of a show-by-show basis. This means viewers will likely see a lot more first-run drama from independent productions across North America and Europe. That's not entirely a bad thing and will broaden the types of shows available on streaming — but rarely are these the loud, buzzy titles that viewers are looking for. The big show of the moment on BINGE is The White Lotus. Viewers watching the show on BINGE will continue to see the rest of the new episodes, with the final episode of that show streaming on April 7. The season will continue to be available on BINGE for 30 days after the final episode. But The White Lotus season 3 is non-exclusive and will be available to watch on Max as well. Fans of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will continue to find the show available on BINGE until the end of the season in November. Unlike The White Lotus, for the moment, that remains exclusive to BINGE. BINGE does still have original content to lean on — Colin From Accounts is a sparkling example of how great local comedies can be. This month saw the launch of a new Australian BINGE original, the limited series adaptation of Liane Moriarty's The Last Anniversary. There's also the upcoming UK co-production Mix Tape starring Teresa Palmer, and the ongoing Real Housewives of Sydney. If BINGE was to shut down, that would mean fewer Australian shows going into production and would contribute to the homogeneity of content on our screens. BINGE may not have had the highest volume of original shows, but if it was to go away, its absence would be felt. It can't be overstated how great the loss of HBO content is to BINGE. Access to HBO titles has been the selling point BINGE has been defined by since launch. Whether BINGE can retain subscriber interest without it remains to be seen. As entertaining and informative as he is, just having John Oliver may not be enough.