
Of course, HBO shows had traveled around before in the 2000s, you could catch edited versions of Band of Brothers on the History Channel, Sex and the City on TBS and E!, and The Sopranos on A&E. The Netflix deal also follows the decision earlier this year to send edited versions of Insecure to the WBD-owned basic cable channel OWN, True Blood to TNT, Silicon Valley to TBS, and other recent licensing plays, like axing and kicking pricey titles like Westworld to ad-supported channels named “WBTV” on Roku and Tubi. True Blood was made available on Hulu in late 2022, becoming accessible to Hulu users without an HBO Max subscription. This new Netflix licensing deal - if it does go through - has been reported as a financial decision from WBD corporate, one that HBO execs aren’t happy about but have limited options to stop.

Nothing’s finalized yet, and both Netflix and WBD declined to comment, but it would be the latest in a series of licensing moves under WBD CEO David Zaslav. Whatever the final shape of a deal, it is expected the agreement would be non-exclusive, allowing titles to appear on both Netflix and WBD’s Max. But because the negotiations between Netflix and HBO are still so fluid, it’s quite possible that all of the titles being talked about won’t end up being licensed by Netflix. In addition, Vulture has learned that the additional titles currently being discussed for the possible deal are Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s comedy Ballers, the iconic early aughts drama Six Feet Under (which aired its last episode in 2005), and a pair of Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks produced miniseries, Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Industry insiders confirmed reports that HBO and Netflix are closing in on a deal for the streamer to take Insecure - and very likely several other fan-favorite library titles - in a new licensing agreement that was first reported by Deadline. Discovery, are going so far as to send some of those shows out to the competition. These are strange times for HBO: You can’t watch its shows on a streaming service called “HBO” anymore, and now the execs at its parent company, Warner Bros.

Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photos: Everette Ballers and Six Feet Under are two of the HBO shows in talks to stream on Netflix.
