They announced that in 2015, you will no longer need to subscribe to HBO through your cable service provider in order to get access to all of HBO’s content online and on mobile devices in the U.S. (HBO has operated in this fashion in Scandinavia through HBO Nordic since last year). HBO isn’t the first to jab the proverbial shiv into the cable industry ribs, and it’s certainly one that the cable industry (, , etc.) We've already seen that the likes of Netflix and Amazon are more than willing to pay for thoughtful, elaborate productions; Transparent is the best show I've seen this fall, and everyone seems to love House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. The answer may be that HBO was under tremendous pressure from cable companies, who are finding themselves struggling to compete with the emergence of low-cost services like Netflix. It helped drive cable subscriptions years before ESPN, CNN, Discovery, USA and their brethren were anything more than business plans and spreadsheets. Aren’t these HBO’s biggest competitors and don’t they stand to lose the most by HBO entering their OTT turf? More and more people are following suit—the number of households without satellite or cable TV has grown 44 percent over the last four years. HBO already tiptoed toward the unbundled future earlier this year, announcing a deal that would give Amazon Prime members unlimited access to some older HBO content. The likes of Twitter, NYTimes.com, and Vice News (sure, I'm partial, but serious) will keep you more informed and entertained than all of the above, with video, if that’s what you'd feel like you’d be missing.
– HBO's announcement that it will launch some of type of stand-alone streaming service next year means that "cable companies should be very, very afraid," writes Issie Lapowsky at Wired. It's a sentiment widely shared out there, with Brian Merchant at Vice chiming in, "From where I'm sitting, it’s the death knell for traditional cable television." After all, people who hate the expensive bundles offered by cable companies will be able to cut the cord and still get high-quality shows. Other entities such as the NFL, Comedy Central, AMC, and, now, CBS, offer similar options, and HBO's entry means "there's almost no conceivable reason you'd need a cable subscription," writes Merchant. People finally will be able to pick and choose what they will pay to watch. Skeptics say those most likely to sign up for the HBO service are probably young, tech-savvy adults who already skip cable, and thus the move won't lead to a significant jump in cord-cutters, writes Derek Thompson at the Atlantic. But even if it simply curbs cable's growth by preventing new sign-ups, "that's bad enough," he writes. The cable industry may still be "ridiculously profitable" but the "empire is shrinking" as subscriptions stagnate. "Bundling has worked," he writes. "Now it's ending. Somebody has to lose this game." Of course, cable companies also are in the business of providing Internet service, so expect them to try to boost profits on that front. In fact, at Forbes, Howard Homonoff thinks the biggest loser in all this isn't the cable industry—he figures most people will stick with cable for the foreseeable future—but Amazon, which recently signed a content deal with HBO for its Prime service.