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How HBO Makes Money

Good read. Interesting to see the difference between HBO and Showtime. Also very surprising that HBO subscribers doesn't change. Curious to know why they have more pull with the cable companies, in that they get more from them when it looks like Showtime is all about getting more subscribers even if they get less for each subscriber from the cable company.
 
With the pull and control HBO has, I have to wonder why it's been so reluctant to go rogue and offer direct to consumer streaming subscriptions outside of the cable companies. I just have to think that with the popularity of Netflix, a company like HBO has a huge untapped market there.
 
vi edit said:
With the pull and control HBO has, I have to wonder why it's been so reluctant to go rogue and offer direct to consumer streaming subscriptions outside of the cable companies. I just have to think that with the popularity of Netflix, a company like HBO has a huge untapped market there.
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HBO GO on my 360 ftw
 
HBO is owned by Time Warner and they also have a big cable company. if they let HBO sell direct to consumers it will kill the business with comcast and other providers.

as it is they get money from a lot of people with some piracy. if they go to direct to consumer then there is the risk of a lot less revenue with more piracy. the sales figures for digital versions of TV shows are somewhere deep in the basement compared to cable subscriptions

almost everyone has a TV with cable
 
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vi edit said:
Yeh but you still need a cable subscription don't you? And only certain cable companies are even offered the option.
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Something like that.
And it's annoying. Our cable company has a very good VOD system, and offers quite a lot of material to watch from all the major channels. For subscribers of the premium cable channels, you get a free VOD category that offers up pretty much everything. I have a feeling the HBO section doesn't match up 1:1 with HBO Go, but everything current is on there (with older material as well).
Sadly, it's a this or that situation apparently - we do not get HBO Go, so I am stuck on the main cablebox if I want HBO VOD content. No PC, no mobiles, notta. Dammit.
 
alent1234 said:
as it is they get money from a lot of people with some piracy. if they go to direct to consumer then there is the risk of a lot less revenue with more piracy
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I don't agree with that all. If offered the option of cable + hbo for $60 or more or HBO alone for $10...for people that want HBO content that makes it *MUCH* less enticing to pirate at the lower amount. Combine it with the portability/convenience of HBO Go and it's even less inticing to pirate.
 
HardcoreRobot said:
boobs
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could you be more specific? are you referring to the mammary glands or mammalian breasts?
The constantly protruding breasts of the adult human female, unusually large relative to body size, are a unique evolutionary development whose purpose is not yet fully known (see breasts); other mammals tend to have less conspicuous mammary glands that protrude only while actually filling with milk. The number and positioning of complex and simple mammary glands varies widely in different mammals.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammary_gland
 
vi edit said:
I don't agree with that all. If offered the option of cable + hbo for $60 or more or HBO alone for $10...for people that want HBO content that makes it *MUCH* less enticing to pirate at the lower amount. Combine it with the portability/convenience of HBO Go and it's even less inticing to pirate.
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I think his point is a lot of people would just plain cancel their cable and watch HBO over HBO Go. Granted Time Warner provides the internet service in a lot of cases as well, but they're still taking from one basket and putting it in another one. And you still need to buy basic before you can get HBO right? I've never heard of a "Just HBO" cable package myself. Those people then get used to not having cable at all or they never get it in the first place.

I think its a moot point because we're going to go there eventually. Its just there is going to be a lot of kicking and screaming whole the old system dies out.
 
vi edit said:
With the pull and control HBO has, I have to wonder why it's been so reluctant to go rogue and offer direct to consumer streaming subscriptions outside of the cable companies. I just have to think that with the popularity of Netflix, a company like HBO has a huge untapped market there.
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netflix customers are too cheap😛
 
PingSpike said:
I think his point is a lot of people would just plain cancel their cable and watch HBO over HBO Go. Granted Time Warner provides the internet service in a lot of cases as well, but they're still taking from one basket and putting it in another one. And you still need to buy basic before you can get HBO right? I've never heard of a "Just HBO" cable package myself. Those people then get used to not having cable at all or they never get it in the first place.

I think its a moot point because we're going to go there eventually. Its just there is going to be a lot of kicking and screaming whole the old system dies out.
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do you really think they will make the $1 billion in profits with direct to consumer?

they have around 27 million subscribers. figure $10 per month for each one that's over $3 billion in revenue per year.

do you really think they will match by selling the shows direct to consumer? if they shut the station down to only producing the content like game of thrones and not airing reruns of movies or bill mahr they still wouldn't generate the same profit
 
I'm not talking "a la carte" in a traditional sense. I'm talking basically a subscription service of HBO Go where you don't need to have a cable subscription and you can stream to something like an Apple TV, Roku, smart phone, ect.

There are millions of people that have ditched cable because of the $50...$60...$100+ monthly fees that would possibly come back to the table if they could stream all of HBO's series and content for $10 a month. That's money right back in their pocket that they previously did not have.
 
i think vi edit is correct, in the future you'll be able to get a subscription/license from the content creator that is 'access type' agnostic
 
alent1234 said:
do you really think they will make the $1 billion in profits with direct to consumer?

they have around 27 million subscribers. figure $10 per month for each one that's over $3 billion in revenue per year.

do you really think they will match by selling the shows direct to consumer? if they shut the station down to only producing the content like game of thrones and not airing reruns of movies or bill mahr they still wouldn't generate the same profit
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They could sell direct to consumer alone and continue to sell the subscription service. I see no reason those should be mutually exclusive. I don't know if they could make $1 billion in profits still with both. I would think they could though. Just charge the same price (or more even) for the direct to video offering. People who want HBO can buy it two different ways now, and some people will surely buy the direct video offering that would not have paid the extra cost for cable subscription + HBO cost. They're already paying all the costs for HBO Go now, because it already exists. They just don't sell it standalone...you have to buy a cable subscriptions to get access.

Why wouldn't they stream the reruns and bill mahr or whatever on steaming? AFAIK they already do that. Its not like it costs them anything other than hard drive space on the server, it essentially doesn't matter what you're watching on the streaming service since the load is the same. HBO owns all its shows, it can do whatever the hell it wants with them without licensing issues that plague other streaming services. I learned that from the article.

Do you mean selling shows one at a time? Because they rent you the whole shebang right now for the cost of your dish/cable HBO subscription price. If they can afford to offer it now, they could afford to offer it alone.
 
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