(Bloomberg Opinion) — HBO Max launches in just two days, and it has the potential to be one of the best streaming-TV apps out there. The only problem is, consumers don’t seem to have a clue what’s on it. In a poll earlier this month conducted by Morning Consult and the Hollywood Reporter, some 2,000 U.S. adults were asked to choose from a list of TV shows and movie titles which ones they think will be available on HBO Max, a new Netflix-like service being introduced by AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia division. The results should worry company executives:As the chart shows, hardly any of the respondents knew that HBO Max would be the exclusive streaming destination for the hit sitcoms “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory” — highly sought-after content rights that WarnerMedia reportedly spent more than $900 million to secure for the new service. It also wasn’t apparent to the survey takers that DC Comics films and “Sesame Street” would reside on HBO Max.HBO has stood as a force all its own for so long that most people just don’t realize it shares a parent company with Warner Bros. studios and other TV networks, such as Cartoon Network, TBS and Turner Classic Movies. That’s too bad since the same poll showed that the inclusion of such content would make many consumers more likely to subscribe. The most telling response, though: Most of the people polled didn’t even think that “Game of Thrones” — the premier series of HBO’s entire 47-year history — would be accessible through HBO Max, even though it has “HBO” in the name. Consumers can be forgiven for the confusion. Americans’ experience so far with streaming-TV apps is that nothing is intuitive and everything is hard to find. For example, it’s not like ESPN+ is a digital replica of regular ESPN; it’s a different product entirely. And for years “Friends” has been available on Netflix, so young people may only know it as a Netflix show. Without being aware of HBO’s ownership and WarnerMedia’s recent dealmaking, there’s no obvious reason Central Perk would be on the same block as Sesame Street, around the corner from Westeros on the streaming continent of HBO Max. To make matters more confusing, streaming regular HBO (through the HBO Now app) and signing up for HBO Max costs exactly the same — $15 a month.Disney+, which has signed up more than 50 million users since its November launch, doesn’t share HBO Max’s branding conundrum. The only thing survey takers seemed to know for sure is that “The Mandalorian” isn’t part of HBO Max. And that’s probably because Walt Disney Co. has so successfully reestablished “Star Wars” as a Disney property, even though it has only owned the franchise since 2012. The same goes for Pixar and Marvel. It’s for that reason that the biggest hangup of Disney+ — being so narrowly focused on superheroes and kid-friendly programming — can also be a strength. The biggest challenge for other streaming services may be building loyalty when viewers aren’t quite sure what to expect. The move away from appointment viewing on cable TV means that while we’re loyal to particular series and trilogies, we don’t necessarily know (or care) what networks or studios they’re tied to. For WarnerMedia, there’s still certainly a powerful advantage in continuing to use the HBO name for its new product — right away it tells people to expect great content (and hopefully that quality isn’t sacrificed while trying to keep up with the Netflix production factory). At the same time, it makes it difficult and costly to educate consumers on what HBO Max even is. That’s especially true when some of its content is temporarily licensed from its very competitors, such as Disney’s “The Mighty Ducks” and “X-Men: Dark Phoenix,” thanks to distribution deals that predate the streaming wars. (Remember, “X-Men” is Marvel, not the DC Extended Universe.)HBO Max could give other apps a run for their money. But how do you easily explain that it’s just like regular HBO, but it has all this other stuff you’ll probably like as well, yet it doesn’t cost anything extra? Good luck fitting that into a compelling advertisement.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Tara Lachapelle is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of entertainment and telecommunications, as well as broader deals. She previously wrote an M&A column for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Israel is divided over the trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces corruption charges including allegedly accepting gifts such as champagne, cigars and jewelry. WSJ’s Dov Lieber explains. Photo: Gali Tibbon/Associated Press

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(Bloomberg) — Oil traded near $33 a barrel as an escalating war of words between the U.S. and China added to caution over the prospects for a global recovery in demand.China warned on Sunday that some in the U.S. were pushing the countries toward a new Cold War, stoking concerns that deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington could complicate the market’s recovery from a historic demand crash. Futures edged higher in New York after falling earlier, with trading volumes thin due to holidays in the U.S., U.K. and Singapore.See also: Oil’s Sudden Rebound Is Exposing the Achilles’ Heel of ShaleCrude has surged more than 75% this month and the boss of the International Energy Agency gave bulls further hope, saying in an interview that demand may well recover from an unprecedented shock caused by Covid-19. Even so, the return of U.S.-China tensions has soured risk sentiment and rekindled more-immediate demand concerns. There’s also concern that some supplies idled during oil’s rout will start to return.“With prices above $30, the recent rally may have pushed too far,” said Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro. “Inventories remain highly elevated and every disappointment could trigger a fresh wave of profit taking. I will continue to point at downside risks towards my clients.”The U.S. should give up its “wishful thinking” of changing China, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during his annual news briefing on the sidelines of National People’s Congress meetings in Beijing. He also warned America not to cross China’s “red line” on Taiwan.While fuel consumption climbs in some nations with the easing of lockdown restrictions, the cheapest U.S. gasoline in nearly two decades won’t be enough to entice nervous Americans to hit the road for Memorial Day weekend. The uncertainty around travel is so great due to the virus that American Automobile Association is not releasing a forecast for the first time in 20 years.“In the absence of strong government policies, a sustained economic recovery and low oil prices are likely to take global oil demand back to where it was, and beyond,” Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, said in an interview, urging governments to focus spending on combating climate change.Big oil annual general meetings in the U.S. and Europe this week should shed light on how heavily producers have been hit by lockdowns, with Total SA, BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. among those fronting shareholders. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has given his government until June 15 to come up with a plan to support the country’s oil industry.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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The German government and the management of flagship carrier Lufthansa, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, have reached an agreement on state aid worth billions of euros, a source close to the matter said. The agreement is still pending approval by the German coronavirus rescue fund’s steering committee, which is expected to meet on Monday, as well as Lufthansa’s boards and the EU commission. The German government declined to comment.

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May.25 — Bayer AG has reached verbal agreements to resolve a substantial portion of an estimated 125,000 U.S. cancer lawsuits over use of its Roundup weedkiller, according to people familiar with the negotiations. Tim Loh reports on “Bloomberg Markets: European Open.”

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(Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. slid after projecting revenue growth will slow this year, reflecting post-Covid 19 economic uncertainty at home as well as the potential for U.S.-Chinese tensions to disrupt its business.Its stock slid as much as 4% in Hong Kong Monday, after a drop of almost 6% in New York before the weekend. The e-commerce giant forecast sales growth this year of at least 27.5% to more than 650 billion yuan ($91 billion), down from 35% previously and slightly below analysts’ estimates. While it posted a better-than-expected 22% rise in March quarter revenue of 114.3 billion yuan, that marked its slowest pace of expansion on record.Online shopping began to bounce back from March, executives said Friday. But the tepid outlook demonstrates the world’s second-largest economy has yet to fully shake off Covid-19, with consumers still hesitant about spending on big-ticket items. Asia’s most valuable corporation is tackling also the rise of rivals such as ByteDance Ltd. and Pinduoduo Inc. And the Tmall operator is going head-to-head with Tencent Holdings Ltd. for internet leadership in everything from online media to payments and cloud computing. JD.com Inc., the No. 2 Chinese online retailer, forecast better-than-expected revenue this quarter.“The market is a bit disappointed despite the strength given 2Q guidance of 20-30% YoY growth for JD and 99% GMV growth in 1Q20 for PDD,” CICC analyst Natalie Wu wrote. “We regard Alibaba’s advantage as a market leader as intact and unchanged in the longer run, though it may take several quarters for market sentiment to swing back.”Read more: Alibaba Sales Growth Plumbs New Lows While Uncertainty EscalatesAlibaba has lost more than $70 billion of market value since the coronavirus first erupted in January, and now has to grapple with not just an uncertain global economic environment but also any potential fallout from U.S.-Chinese financial tensions. On Friday, executives sought to assuage concerns about a U.S. bill that mandates much closer accounting scrutiny of U.S.-listed Chinese companies and may bar them from American bourses.Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu said Friday Alibaba’s financial statements have been consistently prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP accounting measures and were beyond reproach. “The integrity of Alibaba’s financial statements speak for itself, we have been an SEC filer since 2014 and hold ourselves to the highest standard,” she told analysts on a conference call. “We will endeavor to comply with any legislation whose aim is to protect and bring transparency to investors who buy securities on U.S. stock exchanges.”The bigger short-term challenge is in reviving growth: Alibaba’s bread-and-butter customer management or marketing business grew just 3% in the March quarter. Much of that stems from weaker consumer sentiment during the coronavirus-stricken quarter, when total Chinese e-commerce rose just 5.9% or at less than a third of 2019’s pace, according to government data. Jefferies analysts led by Thomas Chong wrote that Alibaba’s guidance was in fact a positive when viewed against an array of uncertainties gripping the post-Covid 19 global economic environment.What Bloomberg Intelligence SaysUser engagement and transaction volume have rebounded in April and May to precrisis levels, which bodes well for normalized sales growth ahead, especially as merchant-support measures are gradually rolled back.\- Vey-Sern Ling and Tiffany Tam, analystsClick here for the research.Rival PDD posted a revenue rise of 44% on Friday, down sharply from 91% in the previous quarter but ahead of expectations. Its sales and marketing expenses jumped 49%. PDD’s shares climbed 15% Friday.Alibaba’s March-quarter net income was 3.2 billion yuan, down 88% from a year ago when it booked an 18.7 billion yuan one-time gain on investments. In February, Alibaba declared a waiver of some service fees for merchants struggling financially during the outbreak on its main direct-to-consumer Tmall platform. In April, the company rolled out a new 10-billion-yuan subsidy program for Tmall users to buy electronics, encroaching on JD.com’s traditional turf. These initiatives may further compress margins for the June quarter.“The challenging part is for them to achieve the same amount of growth this year,” said Steven Zhu, a Shanghai-based analyst with Pacific Epoch. “Just because they are too big, for the same amount of growth, they need to spend much more effort.”But executives were confident in a gradual e-commerce recovery over the year. Beyond its main business, younger divisions such as its cloud computing arm should buoy the bottom line. That division’s revenue jumped 58% in the quarter.“Despite a challenging quarter due to reduced economic activities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, we achieved our annual revenue guidance,” Wu said in a statement. “Although the pandemic negatively impacted most of our domestic core commerce businesses starting in late January, we have seen a steady recovery since March.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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May.24 — Hong Kong protesters battled with riot police in busy downtown areas on Sunday, showing their opposition toward China’s dramatic move to crack down on dissent in the biggest demonstration since the coronavirus swept through the city in January. Stephen Engle reports on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia.”

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Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) China sales continued to recover in April, driven partly by the launch of a cheaper iPhone, CNBC reported.The tech giant sold 3.9 million iPhones in China in April, reflecting a 160% surge from March figures, when it sold 1.5 million smartphones, the Shanghai-based market research firm CINNO Research told CNBC.The signs of a recovery path since February comes as the world’s second largest economy slowly reopens again after the coronavirus pandemic forced store closures earlier this year that led to sales declines. China iPhone sales slumped 60% in February year-on-year. Since mid-March, all stores in China have reopened.Apple, which launched its second-generation iPhone SE in mid-April, started to sell the device in China later that month. It starts at 3,299 yuan ($464) in the mainland. iPhone SE accounted for 24% of all of Apple’s 3.9 million iPhone sales in April, according to CINNO Research.In April, overall smartphone shipments in China rose over 94% to 40.8 million compared with the previous month, according to state-backed think tank, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.Five-star analyst Daniel Ives at Wedbush, who has a Buy rating on the stock with a $350 price target, sees a seminal moment for Apple in China with pressure on both ends of the spectrum from a supply and demand perspective amid renewed tensions between the U.S. and China.The recent Department of Commerce ban on Huawei, preventing it from purchasing semiconductors from U.S. companies, has ignited fears of retaliatory moves against companies such as Apple.“On the demand story, a relative bright spot during this COVID-19 Category 5 storm remains China which represents a growth linchpin region for the company representing roughly 20% of all iPhone upgrades over the next 12 to 18 months with our estimation that 60 million to 70 million iPhones in China are currently in the window of opportunity,” Ives wrote in a note to investors. “From a supply chain perspective we believe Apple would only be able to move 5%-7% of iPhone production to India/ Vietnam over the 18 to 24 months if the China situation/tensions spirals down a more negative and nasty path over the coming months.”Ives believes though that “while uncertainty will add to an already worrisome near-term situation around the global demand picture for Apple, the fundamental impact on iPhone production and the potential backlash in the region thus far is more bark than bite”.Turning now to the rest of Wall Street, analysts have a bullish outlook on Apple’s stock. The Strong Buy consensus is backed up by 27 Buys with the rest split between 4 Holds and 1 Sell. The $318.93 average price target indicates shares are fully priced (See Apple stock analysis on TipRanks).Related News: Apple To Reopen More Than 25 U.S. Stores This Week Google, Apple Roll Out Coronavirus Contact Tracing Technology Apple is Said to Snap Up Startup NextVR For Virtual Reality Content; Top Analyst Sees Buying Opportunity More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * Vermilion Energy CEO Steps Down With Immediate Effect * American Airlines and Others Given Go-Ahead to Reduce Route Coverage * Facebook Workplace Hits 5 Million Paid Users As Remote Work Demand Rises * NYSE to Reopen Its Trading Floor on Tuesday

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May.25 — Ben Powell, chief APAC investment strategist, at BlackRock Investment Institute, shares his views on the region’s markets and global policies. He speaks with Haslinda Amin and Tom Mackenzie on “Bloomberg Markets: Asia.”

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Bayer said on Monday it had made progress seeking a settlement over claims its glyphosate-based Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, after Bloomberg reported the company reached a verbal agreement on about 50,000 to 85,000 cases. In April, Bayer’s management regained shareholder support for its handling of the litigation process. Bloomberg cited people familiar with the negotiations as saying that the deals have yet to be signed and Bayer is likely to announce the settlements in June.

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