In need of a win following the loss of its NBA rights package, Warner Bros. Discovery aims to shore up its linear pay TV business with a multiyear agreement with Charter Communications that begins to rebuild what used to be called the cable bundle.

The deal, which will see a tier of Max, including HBO content and Discovery+, be made available to Charters Spectrum TV Select packages without an extra charge for customers. It marks the first time that HBO programming will be available in a standard cable bundle, and not sold as an add on. The agreement was announced shortly before David Zaslav spoke at Goldman Sachs conference on Thursday, where the Warners CEO said its flagship streamer Max was poised to grow by 6 million subscribers in its latest quarter and that the service needs to grow globally. In August, the company said its streaming subscribers hit 103.3 million at the end of its second quarter, up 3.6 million subs.

Ive been talking about bundling for two years, Zaslav said, touting the companys plans for tie-ups including the Disney+, Hulu and Max bundle as well as international pacts for packages. The CEO said that bundles help reduce churn (when subscribers cancel after just watching, say, one HBO show) and are a better overall consumer experience and can help increase average revenue per user.

WBD will disclose its third-quarter earnings on Nov. 7. Year-to-date its stock has been down 36 percent and has hit lows since the company was formed two and a half years ago after the spin off of Warner Bros. assets from ATT to Discovery with Zaslav at the helm.

The CEO also had a grim forecast for the flotilla of streaming platform startups that hoped to win over subscribers but now face headwinds. I believe its very hard next to impossible to have a sustainable growth streaming business if youre not global, Zaslav noted. Youre going to see a lot of people throwing in the white flag or saying Lets do this differently or Lets do this together.'

He added that he thinks in this streaming shake out there may only be five or six major players left standing. Zaslav said, Therell be consolidation with people buying each other. Therell be consolidation of people saying Ive had enough, and getting out.

More to come.