hbo

Showing 40 posts tagged hbo

Game Of Thrones Premieres To Record Ratings, Piracy

Ryan Lawler for TechCrunch:

What’s clear from the data is that not all the pirated downloads are coming from markets that didn’t have access to the show in the hours immediately after airing, and in fact, there’s a large number of viewers in the U.S. who just aren’t paying to watch the show.

Those behind Game of Thrones have suggested that a lot of the piracy stems from places like Australia, where the show faces a very long window before it’s available. And there is clearly quite the piracy problem there. But it’s not the number one market when it comes to pirating the show. That would be the U.S.

And it will remain the U.S. until we can legally buy the show immediately without a cable subscription.

HBO CEO mulls being smart with HBO GO

Alistair Barr and Liana B. Baker of Reuters spoke with HBO CEO Richard Plepler at an event last night (which, incidentally, I attended as well):

Customers could pay $50 a month for their broadband Internet and an extra $10 or $15 for HBO to be packaged in with that service, for a total of $60 or $65 per month, Plepler explained.

“We would have to make the math work,” he added.

That’s one of the first promising things out of the mouth of HBO regarding HBO Go in a while. It’s not perfect, but I’d settle for it (since I obviously have to pay for broadband anyway).

The question in my mind is if the cable companies would go for it. I pay Comcast for my internet but do not have cable. Would they allow me to pay an extra $15 for HBO Go access even though they know I could get cable as well and simply choose not to? You’d hope so, but they must know that’s a very slippery slope.

Either way, they may be fucked. But at least HBO is finally on the right path of thinking.