But there’s a catch to this early deal. To make it happen, WBD had to make a significant concession: Charter can make the ad-supported version of its Max streaming service — what most people used to call HBO — available for free to most Charter subscribers.

Charter will ultimately pay WBD for the right to give away Max with ads (as will Discovery+, WBD’s far less popular streamer), which sells for $10 a month. So WBD isn’t really giving Max away. But by offering a free version of Max to millions of Charter subscribers, it’s essentially inviting existing Charter/Max subscribers to upgrade to a cheaper plan.

The deal shows the pressure both broadcasters and pay-TV providers are under to close deals while there is still time for more deals, as it looks like the pay-TV ecosystem is faltering.

And WBD is under particular pressure: Many investors believe that the company – a mashup of Discovery and the former Time Warner – is structurally at its end, which is also the reason for the sharp drop in share price in recent years.

Earlier this summer, WBD responded to some of those concerns by taking a $9 billion writedown, and things got even worse last month when the new WBD-backed sports streamer failed to launch.

The deal is also very similar to one Charter made with Disney a year ago, when Disney agreed to let Charter provide an ad-supported version of Disney+ in addition to ESPN+ in exchange for Charter continuing to distribute many of Disney’s traditional cable networks.

Analysts called the deal a win for Charter, but LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield called the deal a “victory” for WBD this time, given the weakened position of its cable channels.

“Nobody had faith in Zaslav/WBD to complete a charter deal, especially one that was not even for a full year,” he wrote.

It’s worth noting, Greenfield added, that investor John Malone is on both sides of this deal and has significant stakes in both companies. (Earlier this year, Malone resigned from his post as honorary director at Charter at the urging of U.S. regulators.)

The timing of the deal is intriguing. It comes as WBD and Comcast, another of the country’s largest pay-TV providers, are discussing a deal to replace a contract that expires at the end of the year. Meanwhile, DirecTV and Disney are locked in a feud that has taken Disney channels away from DirecTV’s 11 million subscribers.

Speaking of timing: WBD CEO David Zaslav will speak at Goldman Sachs’ investor conference on Thursday. He will almost certainly speak about this topic then as well.

Correction: September 12, 2024 – An earlier version of this story misstated which position Malone resigned from. He retired as director emeritus at Charter, not from his role on the board of Warner Bros. Discovery.