Everyone, it seems, is a Game Of Thrones fan. The fantasy series, which was spawned out of a series of novels by George R. R. Martin and adapted for HBO, just aired its third season premiere last night and a whole bunch of people were watching. The show touted its largest-ever live audience during the broadcast, which is good news. The bad news is that it also had more people pirating the show. → Read More
When TechCrunch attended the San Francisco premiere of Game of Thrones Season 3, we didn’t just ask the cast members about their smartphones. I also had a few minutes to talk to HBO CEO Richard Plepler, when I asked him about the show’s status as the most-pirated program of 2012.
“Well, look, it’s the good news and the bad news, right?” Plepler said. “The good news is that a lot of people want… → Read More
TechCrunch was lucky enough to interview several of the Game of Thrones cast members before the San Francisco screening of its Season 3 Premiere. Since we work for a tech blog, we weren’t that interested in learning what they were most excited about when talking about the new season. Instead, we wanted to find out what each cast member’s smartphone of choice is. → Read More
At the D: Dive Into Media conference over the last few days, we’ve heard a lot of executives discuss the big paradigm shift of binge-watching being brought about thanks to Netflix and DVRs. But not everyone loves to watch TV that way. According to HBO President and COO Eric Kessler, binge viewing is an edge case for its viewers. → Read More
Over the last several years, HBO has been making its streaming video product more attractive to users by adding more and more devices that users can stream its programming on. At the D: Dive Into Media conference today, HBO President and COO Eric Kessler said that the company is enabling AirPlay streaming for its HBO apps, enabling iOS users to stream video from the iPad to the Apple TV. → Read More
HBO today has won a battle in the over-the-top content wars. The pay-TV giant has inked a deal with Universal Pictures that extends Universal Pictures’ and Focus Features’ films appearing on HBO’s TV, online and mobile platforms in the U.S. for the next decade. What’s key is that the deal is exclusive to HBO and will mean that Netflix (and other OTT players) will not get that… → Read More
Those of us who were looking forward to seeing Netflix and HBO go head-to-head will have to wait just a little bit longer. That’s because HBO has delayed the launch of its HBO Nordic subscription streaming service in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, according to Reuters. → Read More
HBO GO’s Latin American expansion continues today, with the service’s launch in Columbia. The debut there follows the launch of HBO GO in Brazil earlier this year, where it saw 177,000 visits in its first week. In Columbia, the service is being made available to HBO/MAX subscribers on MiDIRECTV, but HBO says that it’s working with other pay TV operators in the region for future roll-outs.
The… → Read More
Those lucky folks in the Nordics just recently got access to an on-demand, over-the-top HBO service that bears more than a passing resemblance to HBO GO, but we here in the States haven’t been quite as fortunate.
Our own Ryan Lawler raised the Nordic situation with HBO Senior Vice President of Digital Platforms Alison Moore on-stage here at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, but the conversation quickly… → Read More
HBO is going to launch its first significant over-the-top offering, and it’s going to do so in one of the same markets as Netflix. The service, called HBO Nordic, will be launched in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland in mid-October, and could provide some interesting competition to Netflix, which will also soon be entering that region.
HBO Nordic is a joint venture between Home Box Office… → Read More
Batten down the hatches, netizens! At a streaming media conference yesterday, Dish Network Vice-President of Online Content Development and Strategy, Bruce Eisen, said that sites like Hulu, which allow Internet users to watch certain television programming (and sometimes for free), may well destroy the television industry as we know it. That’s a bad thing if you’re Dish Network, but what if you’re… → Read More
Would you ever sit down an voluntarily watch any of the following movies: Clash of the Titans, The Polar Express, and Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore? If you answered “yes,” or even, “yeah, maybe” please answer the following question: wow, why? In any event, just know this: HBO plans to launch a 3D on-demand channel “early next year,” and these movies will be among those… → Read More
Today HBO announced it will be making its movies and TV Shows available on the Web to subscribers through HBO Go, which up until now has been in private beta. HBO Go is part of the cable industry’s TV Everywhere strategy to make TV content available online to paying subscribers. It contains 600 hours of movies and TV shows which can be streamed live and even in HD. HBO Go is available first to… → Read More
I have to be honest. I didn’t think much of the TV Everywhere plans laid out by Comcast and Time Warner last month, but the service sure has my attention now. Soon – like in a few weeks – 5,000 beta testers will be able to watch TBS, TNT, Stars, HBO, and Cinemax content on Fancast.com or Comcast.net along with the content already available from ABC, NBC, FX, and more. Eventually, the plan is to… → Read More
HBO on Monday announced that it will try to use the Web in a slightly different way than its colleagues at NBC and Fox have used it with Hulu: it will launch its own Web video series called “Hooking Up.” → Read More
HBO will sell “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City,” “Deadwood” and “Rome,” “Flight of the Conchords” and “The Wire,” among others, on the iTunes store. All 94 episodes of “Sex in the City” will be available (a mere $187 for the whole run!) at $1.99 each while more popular shows like the “Sopranos” and “Deadwood” will cost $2.99. HBO is… → Read More
It seems like a perfect match. HBO with its commercial-free, high-quality programming (but smaller audience), and Apple with its huge audience but lacking a lot of the shows I want to be watching: John Adams, The Wire, Flight of the Conchords. It’s no surprise they’re getting busy. HBO actually already has an online distribution service, but it’s only for members and is both… → Read More
This is part of a thread on BBG about DVNO, a new video from Justice designed to look like the TV intros from the 1980s and early 1990s. This video describes how they made the original bumper for HBO — the video that played before every movie and that signaled the start of big things back when I was 12 or 13. Whereas now you’d just CG this in a week, these guys spent weeks building a… → Read More
That’s right, kiddies. Starting tomorrow you’ll be able to download HBO shows including hits like John From Cincinnati and Rome. Oh, yeah, those have both been canceled, right? Well, Flight of the Conchords and Entourage are still around. HBO’s way of bringing content online is unique in that it won’t be Web-based streaming like we’re used to with other networks. → Read More
If you’ve been left hungry for new content due to the writer’s strike, I suggest you check out HBO’s “The Wire.” If you’ve ever found yourself caught watching a predictable episode of “Law & Order” or “CSI” then rest assured that “The Wire” could flay those shows alive. It’s arguably the best show on TV ever and the… → Read More
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