HBO Max stops producing Hungarian content

Warner Bros. Discovery has confirmed that HBO Max will no longer procude Hungarian content. The decision does not only affect Hungary, but also all Central European and Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland).

No more Hungarian content

As part of the restructure, certain European originals are coming off HBO Max globally. Hungarian drama “The Informant” as well as “Lust” and “Kamikaze” will all be removed from the video on-demand service, reports Variety. In addition, the third season of “Golden life” disappears. However, according to Forbes, there is still hope for some other Hungarian shows. HBO Max has recently announced its first self-produced Hungarian-language reality show. Although its future is still undecided, there is a chance that the production will continue.

What might be the reason?

“The Informant” became popular quite quickly in Hungary. In fact, the streaming service did their best to promote the show. Then why the sudden change? The new CEO, David Zaslav, committed to cutting costs by USD 3 billion (EUR 2.9 billion) in the first 24 months. The stock company’s current value is more than USD 34 billion (EUR 33.1 billion) with USD 55 billion (EUR 53.6 billion) of debt. Therefore, there must be financial reasons behind the decision.

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Hungarian content disappeared without warning

Strangely, without any precedent or warning, the series “The Informant” disappeared from HBO Max on Wednesday morning. There is no trace left on the Twitter and YouTube pages of Hungarian HBO Max that the self-produced series once existed: the streaming service provider has deleted all content referring to the show from its platforms. According to hvg.hu, they even deleted the twitter post about “The Informant”‘s premiere day.  The whole series disappeared in the blink of an eye. As for the Hungarian HBO, this decision came as a surprise to them, too. They did not know in advance that the Hungarian HBO will stop producing Hungarian content. It was the idea of the Americans.

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Source: Variety, Forbes, HVG