In one the latest power moves in the film/television industry, The HBO network has decided to start its own online streaming video service to potential customers sometime next year. This essentially means that now people without cable or satellite TV (in their home) will now be able to enjoy all the programs that HBO has to offer as long as they have internet. This looks to be a significant new market for the HBO network, which is currently only seen through cable or satellite. Today, HBO’s Chief Executive Richard Pepler made the announcement at an investor’s event stating that:
“It is time to remove all barriers to those who want HBO. All in all, there are 80 million homes that do not have HBO, and we will use all means at our disposal to go after them.”
Although this looks to be a brilliant idea for the popular network, it also has the potential to be a conflict of interest with its parent company Time Warner. This is a result of HBO being owned by Time Warner who is a company that mostly profits from cable & satellite companies. It will be interesting to see if this new “Online subscription service” will actually have the same benefits as all the cable & satellite viewers who have subscriptions to the network. If there is in fact no difference between the services, it could cause a major shift in how a lot of people choose to watch (and pay) for their television. The potential loss in customers cancelling their satellite & cable TV service for the convenience of internet video streaming may cause a ripple down effect of the level of viewers for other networks that are partnered with Time Warner like CNN & TNT. There are a lot of different moving parts to factor in and there weren’t any concrete details as it relates to the actual launch date & the price of this new service. All we know is that one of America’s most popular television networks is coming to the web, and pretty soon you won’t have to have cable or satellite in your home to watch the latest episodes of hit shows such as the “Game of Thrones”
– JRC
Product Of Society 