The market has spoken here, and quality is the real differentiator.” To put it more plainly: The basic assumption behind the Max branding, that viewers would flock to Discovery’s big buckets of unscripted dross over the decades of quality material in HBO and other Warner Bros.

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Sarandos said that branding was one area in which Netflix had an easier time than its legacy media rivals.

Warner Bros. Discovery knew the announcement that it was restoring “HBO” to the name of its Max streamer would elicit forehead-slapping derision. The media company tried to preempt mockery of the move by posting a slew of self-deprecating memes immediately after it said the “new-ish” HBO Max name would come back this summer.

Warner Bros. Discovery announced the change today, rolling back one of the clumsiest rebrands in history from a streaming service that’s had more than its share of clumsy ideas.