Pairing Tony Soprano with Elmo and Chandler Bing was always going to be tricky.
Would the murderous mob boss befriend a red muppet? Forget about it. Nor would Tony Soprano have much patience for the wiseguy antics of Chandler Bing, the neighbor from “Friends.”
Yet here they are, pillars of a new streaming service, HBO Max, that rolls out May 27. Ever since telecommunications giant AT&T bought Time Warner nearly two years ago and renamed the company WarnerMedia, executives have been building toward this event. HBO Max’s launch will be a watershed moment as a major Hollywood player for nearly a century attempts a high-wire pivot into a new media powerhouse.
But in figuring out how to market HBO Max, WarnerMedia executives confronted inherent conflicts. There are already three other HBO-branded products: HBO, the premium television channel; HBO Go, an app for subscribers to…
