At 3am ET on Thursday, HBO Max debuted its long-awaited Friends Reunion special that brings together the original cast of the beloved sitcom for a night of memories and warmhearted nostalgia. But amid all of the fuzzy emotions is the cold hard business truth: HBO Max needs The Reunion to drive interest and engagement. On that front, the special seems to be succeeding thus far.
Vulture‘s West Coast Editor Josef Adalian reports that new subscribers are electing to begin their HBO Max subscriptions with a Friends rewatch as an increasingly high rate. As of Thursday morning, the HBO Max app was trending at No. 22 among the iOS free apps and No. 4 among top grossing apps in the U.S., per appannie.
Friends: The Reunion special on HBO Max has also driven a surge of U.S. and worldwide demand for the original sitcom. As of May 24, Friends was the fourth most in-demand overall show in the world—behind only Game of Thrones, Attack on Titan, and La Casa de Papel (Money Heist)—and the eight most in-demand overall show in the U.S., behind stalwarts such as The Simpsons and The Mandalorian (both on Disney+).
Visit Observer to read this article.
