In a recent investor meeting, AT&T’s future CEO John Stankey made comments about how HBO Max subscribers will be able to access the streaming service when it launches later this month. During that discussion, Stankey specifically named Amazon as a potential distribution partner that the company hadn’t yet made a deal with.
“We’re going to be available across a broad cross-section of distributors. I think that will help with the momentum of the product coming out the door,” Stankey said. “We’re going to be in virtually all app stores, with maybe one exception: It looks like we may not be in the Amazon Fire app store, when all is said and done. But we feel really good about the distribution dynamic.”
This led to assumptions that Amazon was the only platform that hadn’t yet made a distribution deal with HBO Max.
After that article was published, a Roku spokesperson reached out with the following statement:
“As the #1 streaming platform in the US with over 40 million active accounts that rely upon Roku to access their favorite programs and to discover new content, we are focused on entering into win-win distribution agreements with all new OTT services as part of their launch strategies. While we don’t typically comment on specific deal terms or negotiations, the fact is that in this instance while we believe that HBOMax would benefit greatly from distribution on Roku at launch, we do not currently have an agreement in place.”
AT&T has officially announced distribution deals with several platforms. HBO Max will be available on Android Devices and Apple Devices including Apple TV 4K, as well as being available as an add-on for YouTube TV and Hulu subscribers. That means that subscribers accessing YouTube TV or Hulu from an Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and other devices would be able to watch HBO Max through those subscriptions, but a standalone app won’t be available on the platforms unless distribution deals are made.
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