What's the difference between Crave and HBO Max (now Max)?
One of the biggest questions people ask Kutko all the time is how they go about getting access to HBO Max (now called Max) in Canada. Many folks are unsure why Max hasn’t launched their highly successful direct to consumer streaming service in Canada especially when most recently Max which is owned and operated by parent company Warner Media has recently launched the service in other regions like Europe, South America and the Caribbean.
Canada seems to be notably absent from any publicly announced expansion plans for Max which is incredibly frustrating for Canadian cord cutters who have a long standing desire to have access to the service.
Instead the choice for many Canadians to watch their favourite HBO content seems to be Bell’s Crave service, but deep down many people have a sneaking suspicion that Crave is not really the same as Max.
So what are the key differences between the two services and why are so many people so frustrated with Bell and Crave?
We’re going to try and cover all of that in this article, but if you feel we missed anything feel free to comment below.
The Basics
Let’s start with the basic information about both streaming services.
HBO Max was launched officially in the US on May 27, 2020. Before it was renamed and launched under the HBO Max moniker it was called HBO Now which was launched on April 7th, 2015. Both the HBO Now and HBO Max service we’re priced at $14.99 US per month (plus tax) and we’re available to anyone in the US to subscribe to allowing you to access all of HBO’s content on demand. HBO Max launched an ad supported subscription tier in June 2021 for $9.99 US a month. In March 2022 Discovery merged with Warner Media effectively taking control of the HBO streaming service and renaming the service to just Max relaunching it in May of 2023.
It’s worth noting though that HBO Max and HBO Now we’re the evolution of the HBO Go streaming service that originally launched in February 2010. HBO Go was not a direct to consumer streaming service, meaning you could not subscribe to it but if you had HBO as part of your US cable subscription you could login with your cable provider credentials and get access to HBO’s content via a variety of streaming devices.
In comparison Bell launched CraveTV first in December 2014. The original price of CraveTV was $4.00 CA (plus tax) but the catch was that it was not a direct to consumer OTT (over the top) streaming service. It was only available to as an add-on for subscribers of television service providers owned by Bell Canada (including Bell Satellite TV, Bell Fibe TV, and Bell Aliant), along with Eastlink and Telus.
Crave was forced to transition the service to a traditional direct to consumer OTT service in 2016 after being sued by two Canadian Advocacy Groups (The Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the Consumers' Association of Canada) who essentially questioned why both CraveTV and the Rogers Shomi streaming service were forcing consumers to subscribe to cable in order to then purchase and use the service.
In March of 2016 the CRTC ruled that CraveTV and Shomi must open up and become direct to consumer OTT services but it wasn’t until January 2017 that they opened the service up to everyone and that included a price bump from $4.00 to $7.99 Canadian a month (plus tax). Crave TV would go on raising the price again from $7.99 to $9.99 Canadian a month (plus tax) in May 2018
Crave again changed their pricing tiers in October 2021 which we covered here.
One of the biggest frustrations with Crave is that they limit how many devices you can register with a paid account. The current limit is 5 devices. This has nothing to do with how many people can be watching something on Crave at the same time, it’s simply a device limit even if those devices are not being used. Even more frustrating is that the process to delete and add devices is buried on an obscure website, you can’t actually manage your device list through the app on any of the devices.
HBO Max has no such device limit. They do have a limit of 3 simultaneous streams. Beyond that you can sign into your HBO Max account on as many devices as you want.
The Content
The biggest difference between Crave and HBO Max is the content. Crave touts itself as being home to HBO, Showtime, Starz, ViacomCBS as well as Bell original programming in Canada.
At first glance this seems like a great deal. Being able to get all of that content from all of those sources who have their own separate streaming services in the US. While Crave does have content from these streaming services, don’t be fooled. It’s not the same.
As an example here is a look at all of the movies listed alphabetically on HBO Max as of early February 2022. It’s a video that last six minutes and fifty nine seconds to scroll through just the movies on HBO Max.
Unfortunately Crave doesn’t offer you the same capability. You can’t scroll through just the HBO Movies. You can go to the Movies section on Crave and scroll through various curated content categories like Trending Now, Recently Added Movies, Blockbuster Movies, Acclaimed Movies and more. As you scroll through the movies section it’s important to know that all of these movies are an amalgamation of movies from all of the services mentioned before (HBO, Showtime, Starz, ViacomCBS).
There is no way on Crave to look at all of their movies in alphabetical order from A-Z. This is a huge pet peeve of ours on any streaming service.
When you do get to the bottom of the Movies section you’ll find a category called HBO Movies that in Feb 2022 had a total of 111 movies in it. These are just HBO produced movies, not movies that have come from the HBO Max streaming service.
From the home screen of Crave you can click on the HBO moniker and get directed to a page that allows you to eventually find a place to be able to scroll through all HBO content on Crave. This includes all movies and series. Again though most annoyingly the content is in no specific order and you can’t sort it alphabetically.
It’s worth noting that to scroll through all of the HBO series and movies available on Crave only take two minutes and seventeen seconds.
Now in comparison let’s also look at all of the TV series available on HBO Max for February 2022. Just scrolling through the TV series only on HBO Max takes two minutes and fifty five seconds.
This of course doesn’t cover Showtime, Starz and CBS content, but it’s the same for all of them. Crave does not get every movie and show from all of these other streaming services. Crave does not clarify or comment on what content they do get or don’t get.
We have more examples of what is on these other services to compare on our YouTube channel.
When it comes to Crave vs HBO Max content here are some examples of content that is part of HBO Max but not on Crave.
TCM - Turner Classic Movies. Since this catalogue is owned by Warner Media it is included as part of HBO Max.
[adult swim] which includes shows like Rick and Morty, Robot Chicken, Smiling Friends and others.
Cartoon Network (CN) which includes shows like We Baby Bears, Teen Titans, The Powerpuff Girls and more. It also includes plenty of Hanna Barbera classics like Scooby-Doo, The Flinstones, The Jetsons, Tom & Jerry, Jonny Quest, Smurfs and Popeye.
Sesame Street Workshop which includes classic and newer episodes of Sesame Street.
DC section which includes a ton of DC animated movies as well as all of the DC live action films. This includes all of the original Christopher Reeves Superman films.
Studio Ghibli
There is also plenty of content from other Warner owned channels like CNN, TruTV
