<story><title>HBO Decides It Still Isn&apos;t Difficult Enough To Watch HBO Shows</title><url>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120418/08405618545/hbo-decides-it-still-isnt-difficult-enough-to-watch-hbo-shows.shtml</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>brandall10</author><text>The thing that bothers me most about this is I credit HBO for leading the charge with innovative content that as a whole brought TV to a much higher level.  They took big chances even when it wasn&apos;t profitable to do so.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve had a serious love affair with the network beginning with Dream On, The Larry Sanders Show, then moving on to Oz (yeah it was a &apos;male&apos; soap opera I guess :), Sopranos, 6 Feet Under, Deadwood - which I didn&apos;t particularly _love_, but highly respected, and most of all The Wire (best thing to ever grace the screen IMO - they lost $$ on it throughout its run)... and then I killed my cable sub and haven&apos;t seen anything of their&apos;s since.&lt;p&gt;Now Mad Men and Breaking Bad are my two favorite shows, they&apos;re both on AMC, and I can easily purchase each season on iTunes HD for just north of $30.  Every episode is available hours after they originally air.  I&apos;d pay twice that much.&lt;p&gt;Of course, the problem is HBO is just too tightly coupled to big cable.  They&apos;re one of the main attractions, and as such the kickbacks they get are tied to contracts that prevent them from wresting their content to any great degree.  Until this model changes, their A content won&apos;t see the light of day, and more draconian measures are likely to be put in place to thwart piracy.  It&apos;s not HBO itself per-see, but HBO as a proxy for big cable; as a defense mechanism to prop up a flailing business model.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdludlow</author><text>Our experiences are nearly mirror images. I cancelled cable TV years ago. When Game of Thrones came out last year, I naively thought &quot;No big deal. I&apos;ll just pay HBO for streaming.&quot; I was shocked to discover that there&apos;s no way for me to upend my wallet into HBO&apos;s coffers without funneling it through Comcast and buying multiple tiers of garbage that I care nothing about.&lt;p&gt;I waited a year and bought the blu ray version, but I still can&apos;t understand why HBO wouldn&apos;t prefer to get their money earlier rather than later.</text></comment>
<story><title>HBO Decides It Still Isn&apos;t Difficult Enough To Watch HBO Shows</title><url>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120418/08405618545/hbo-decides-it-still-isnt-difficult-enough-to-watch-hbo-shows.shtml</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>brandall10</author><text>The thing that bothers me most about this is I credit HBO for leading the charge with innovative content that as a whole brought TV to a much higher level.  They took big chances even when it wasn&apos;t profitable to do so.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve had a serious love affair with the network beginning with Dream On, The Larry Sanders Show, then moving on to Oz (yeah it was a &apos;male&apos; soap opera I guess :), Sopranos, 6 Feet Under, Deadwood - which I didn&apos;t particularly _love_, but highly respected, and most of all The Wire (best thing to ever grace the screen IMO - they lost $$ on it throughout its run)... and then I killed my cable sub and haven&apos;t seen anything of their&apos;s since.&lt;p&gt;Now Mad Men and Breaking Bad are my two favorite shows, they&apos;re both on AMC, and I can easily purchase each season on iTunes HD for just north of $30.  Every episode is available hours after they originally air.  I&apos;d pay twice that much.&lt;p&gt;Of course, the problem is HBO is just too tightly coupled to big cable.  They&apos;re one of the main attractions, and as such the kickbacks they get are tied to contracts that prevent them from wresting their content to any great degree.  Until this model changes, their A content won&apos;t see the light of day, and more draconian measures are likely to be put in place to thwart piracy.  It&apos;s not HBO itself per-see, but HBO as a proxy for big cable; as a defense mechanism to prop up a flailing business model.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jonnathanson</author><text>I couldn&apos;t agree more, as both a fan of HBO&apos;s content and a curious observer of its evolving business model.&lt;p&gt;For awhile there, it seemed as if HBO was making great strides in decoupling itself from the traditional cable model. HBO GO is a great app, and its launch represented an intriguing challenge to the status quo of the analog and digital content ecosystems.&lt;p&gt;We should keep in mind, however, that HBO is owned by Time Warner -- a company with plenty of vested interests in the status quo, not to mention a number of other cable and broadcast channels (CNN, Cartoon Network, CW, etc.) whose existence as discrete networks would be (in its view) threatened by overly disruptive maneuvers by one of its subsidiaries.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, HBO&apos;s bread is buttered by the big cable providers. It makes the majority of its revenue from licensing fees to the likes of Comcast, Time Warner Cable (&lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; presently owned by Time Warner, fwiw), AT&amp;#38;T, and the others.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, I get the impression that HBO -- were it an independent business entity -- would be acting more aggressively to move away from the status quo. It seems to realize that it&apos;s aboard a slowly sinking ship. Unfortunately, it happens to be an officer of that ship&apos;s crew.</text></comment>