HBO cuts the cord, brings streaming-only service to Europe

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/08/hbo-cuts-the-cord-brings-streaming-only-service-to-europe/

by nightbrawler • 14 years ago

197 97 14 years ago

bgentry• 14 years ago

Wow. I have to admit that I didn't expect to see anything like this from them for at least a couple more years.

We'll see how long it takes to bring it to the US though. I'd guess that their cable co ties are too strong here to do it anytime soon.

pavel_lishin4• 14 years ago

I wonder how long this has been in the works.

jonursenbach• 14 years ago

They might also be using them as a test market and if successful, will look into bringing it over the US. I hope so.

j_baker• 14 years ago

I think the answer is probably "as soon as people stop giving money to cable cos for HBO".

001sky2• 14 years ago

This might also be a technical reaearch project. test the weapons that are avail, etc. Go back and improve, before the real war.

gizzlon3• 14 years ago

The real war? Couldn't the market for HBO be bigger in Europe than in the US? (given that there's more people here ;)

lambda• 14 years ago

Well, this looks like something that I'd be willing to pay for once it comes to the US. Not holding my breath, but it's definitely a good sign that it's coming to other markets.

bartonfink• 14 years ago

Any ideas whether it would be feasible to get a proxy connection up to watch it in the U.S. via this?

stackingcode• 14 years ago

You could try a VPN with iPredator.

https://www.ipredator.se/ https://www.ipredator.se/page/faq#other_stream

culturestate• 14 years ago

You could use a proxy, but I'm guessing they will also restrict subscription payments to European credit cards like Spotify did before they came to the U.S.

jfb• 14 years ago

I imagine that their market penetration in Europe in so tiny that they can experiment with new models without pissing in too many people's Wheaties. Don't expect this in the US anytime soon.

jinzo• 14 years ago

In Slovenia (small country in Central Europe - so quite far from the HBO Nord AB countries.) they're pretty known (and available everywhere - for money of-course). And the article is wrong - we got HBO Go some months ago too.

ovi256• 14 years ago

In Romania, cable companies have pirated HBO for years. They just offer it free to their customers. Recently, some have cleaned up their offers, but you can still bribe the cable tech for a trifle so he unblocks HBO, apparently.

Peer• 14 years ago

With HBO Go you must have a subscription to HBO the cable network, but this Nordic service will only be online. I think that is what is new about it.

gizzlon3• 14 years ago

It's not so tiny here in Scandinavia. Most young people I know watch a HBO show or five. There where big Game of Thrones posters on the subway.

anonymouz2• 14 years ago

I had already grabbed my wallet, but then I noticed that it will be restricted to a very few countries.

Oh well, back to Pirate Bay.

colmvp• 14 years ago

Yeah it's too bad there's no other forms of culture and entertainment to consume.

anonymouz2• 14 years ago

Obviously there's lots of interesting entertainment. But I also happen to like some TV series, and they are usually not available here in any reasonable form (i.e., if local broadcasters pick them up at some point, then they are dubbed). As far as watching TV series in original English goes, grabbing them via a torrent is by far the most convenient and available method here.

fwr• 14 years ago

This is probably the first cool thing ever to appear in Poland before the rest of Europe.

pavel_lishin4• 14 years ago

Vodka.

3pt14159• 14 years ago

Wasn't Turkey there first?

jlgreco• 14 years ago

Polish sausage.

Few things in this world are tastier.

odiroot• 14 years ago

That's not actually true. Russians were first.

We were probably the first to produce some crude kind of brandy ("winiak" in Polish).

It's actually funny that our most successfully exported vodka is Zubrowka. It's not considered that great here. I guess it's the novelty factor.

klausa• 14 years ago

I live in Poland and it's the first time I ever heard about something like this. As far as quick google can tell me, we have the same "you get HBO Go when you subscribe to cable" thing going on.

Is there a forest I'm missing from the trees?

untog2• 14 years ago

As someone from the UK (who now lives in the US) I look forward to the reversal of roles when US techies are forced to search out proxy connections that allow them to watch online content.

Welcome to the club.

marknutter• 14 years ago

A lot of us had to do that with the Olympics already.

antihero2• 14 years ago

It was kind of weirdly entertaining in a Schadenfreude-esque manner.

mikeash• 14 years ago

It's not exactly a new phenomenon. In addition to obvious British stuff like Sherlock and The IT Crowd, I also resorted to underhanded techniques to watch the first season of the remade Battlestar Galactica series, as it was released in the UK several months before the US.

stcredzero2• 14 years ago

I had abandoned TV long ago. I had no idea I was seeing the 1st season of BSG months ahead of everyone else, because most people I knew who were watching it were also torrenting it.

mmahemoff• 14 years ago

Happened with Spotify for a while.

drstewart• 14 years ago

As opposed to now, when the US can watch BBC for free?

saryant• 14 years ago

BBC America is not the same thing. While a lot of their new shows are finally being broadcast at the same time (next season of Doctor Who has the same premier date in the UK and US), many are still a few months behind here.

I think the first season of Sherlock was one such show.

ImprovedSilence• 14 years ago

We've been there for awhile. A la Top Gear.

slurgfest3• 14 years ago

Why do you want something unpleasant for people who weren't responsible for your own unpleasant experiences?

fpgeek• 14 years ago

Because they've shown little or no empathy about those unpleasant experiences?

untog2• 14 years ago

Awareness. I will often see someone post a link to Hulu and be genuinely unaware that no-one outside of the US can view it.

bsphil• 14 years ago

Because most Americans are unaware of how limiting content providers are once you connect from a non-US IP. A blunt dose of awareness would go a long way in helping people understand the situation.

And it's not really their fault, either. How would you know that the whitelist even exists if you're always on it?

_b8r0• 14 years ago

I look forward to paying for this without having to pay for VPN service to Denmark as well to watch it.

mbesto• 14 years ago

As an American living in the UK, I look forward to this as well.

ps- You can get NFL Gamepass (it's basically a web-streaming version of NFL Ticket) for $150/season if you have a UK IP address. Only problem is that it blacks out one of the games (whichever Sky sports is covering) but otherwise HD streaming video and can switch to every game live. It's a sportsman dream.

digeridoo• 14 years ago

Europe as in: the 4% of Europeans that live in Scandinavia.

freyr• 14 years ago

The 4% that live beyond the Wall. The wildlings.

codesuela• 14 years ago

Let's get a P2P network started. Americans get BBC and HBO, we get Hulu and Netflix

antihero2• 14 years ago

We already have one of those, except everyone gets everything.

jrockway2• 14 years ago

Letting people access content they want to see is killing the industry.

baddox2• 14 years ago

If only there was already some P2P network that facilitates the illicit sharing of multimedia content.

slurgfest3• 14 years ago

If you cannot convince some American company to stream to you (which is a matter of that company's choices, not some sort of national content embargo) then why not create your own companies and your own content? Then you also have the option of exporting that service elsewhere, which would give you a competitive advantage over companies which only serve a domestic market.

seanc7222• 14 years ago

I feel like the price is a little steep. If all your networks did the exact same thing it would cost a fortune. Though HBO is nice...

chrischen• 14 years ago

It still beats buying it off iTunes, which can cost around $40 per show per season.

This I'm assuming you can probably subscribe when you need, watch all the shows, and then unsubscribe.

reustle• 14 years ago

How many shows do you actually watch? I'm not talking about the crap you let play while you walk around the house.

seanc7222• 14 years ago

I watch quite a few shows across different networks. I guess this is a good start though. If they did follow with options similar to posted in the previous comments then I feel it would be superb... Though I feel like these days it rarely happens.

incision3• 14 years ago

Who really wants all those networks?

I think $12.50 is perfectly acceptable for the second largest and likely most desirable premium network out there.

I'd expect that most folks probably watch fewer than a dozen channels with any regularity. Nielsen says that the average household was receiving 130 channels yet only watching 18 of them in 2008 [1].

I think we eventually get to an a-la-carte system with app-like monthly price points where premium content falls comes in at $5, $10 or more and there are dozens of solid options in the $1-3 range with loads of free (ad-supported) content.

1: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/...

ConstantineXVI• 14 years ago

HBO's typically ~$7-10 on top of your normal cable bill anyway. If the regular networks went down this model, you'd probably be buying all of [Time Warner, NBC, Disney, Fox]'s channels at $10/mo rather than one by one.

baddox2• 14 years ago

Really? I think the price is great, assuming it's a high quality stream with no ads, new episodes are made available promptly, and you intend to watch at least two or three HBO shows.

incision3• 14 years ago

Despite all the naysaying, I have a feeling this could show up in the US sooner than expected.

HBO GO is very good, surprisingly so. The quality of that effort in combination with moves like this suggest some very smart, visionary folks are at work there.

Anecdotally, I'm seeing rapidly growing interest in cord-cutting among non-technical folks.

As tablets and 4G phones proliferate I see people in general becoming increasingly frustrated with cable and desirous of having content when and where they want it.

tptacek3• 14 years ago

If you have cable, HBO GO is free on your phone.

bratsche• 14 years ago

That's the problem. It shouldn't be tied to a cable carrier at all.

Also, it's not available with all cable carriers. If I subscribe to HBO with Time Warner Cable in Dallas, HBO Go is not available to me.

aaronbrethorst• 14 years ago

I only watch HBO through my Xbox and iPad (and hopefully someday my Apple TV). The experience is orders of magnitude better than dealing with Comcast's horrific set top box UI.

I can't wait until I can switch over entirely...

incision3• 14 years ago

Yep.

While there are plenty of people who don't have a console, tablet or a streaming set-top, seemingly everyone has a smartphone. A smartphone which presents an easy, smooth and and generally painless way to consume content on-demand.

These devices are putting perspective to the horrible experience offered by the archaic Motorola set-tops and broadcast model that most cable consumers suffer through. Google is smart to dump that business [1].

1: http://allthingsd.com/20120829/google-reportedly-looking-to-...

e28eta• 14 years ago

Wasn't the CEO of HBO doing some naysaying of his own recently? I think I remember an article where he said cord cutting was (a myth, overblown, exaggerated, ???)

Maybe he was just offering a little misdirection, but it didn't seem like it.

vegardx• 14 years ago

I wonder when more services like this will be released in northern Europe. The legal systems are more or less identical on copyright and intellectual property, which should make it a lot easier? Combined, scandinavia covers around 20 million people and have one of the worlds highest purchasing power.

wmeredith• 14 years ago

One more crack in the dam.

sfall• 14 years ago

I hope for the US that HBO will make it an add-on for Hulu or Netflix, I really have enough streaming services.

stcredzero2• 14 years ago

Paying more per-show, but only paying for the shows you want to watch, will likely encourage higher quality shows.

When you have, to steal some words from Pink Floyd, "500 channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from." Then the next channel of crap will always capture marginally more money, and will be profitable if costs are low enough. So what you get is in-your face lowest common denominator crap designed to draw the attention of bored channel surfers.

On the other hand, if shows need to generate buzz around the water cooler, such that people are proud to have discovered the show and announce to the world they're paying for it, the focus needs to be on quality.

danso• 14 years ago

I love ArsTechnica too, but I think the link traffic should've gone to Variety mag:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118058484

sien• 14 years ago

While it appears there are not that many sports fans here it is worth noting that for sport this is already happening.

The NBA and others have started online subscriptions for their content. For people in places like Australia where cable subscriptions with good sport cost $100 / month it's well worth it.

Setanta, an Irish concern, has a streaming service that allows you to pay $17 a month or $100 a year for live sport much of which is soccer. I watch the Bundesliga using this service and it is excellent.

It's a shame that you can't get Ligue 1, Serie A, La Liga and the EPL this way. Yet.

gtCameron• 14 years ago

I have the MLB package. They still restrict the content to appease the cable companies, you can only watch the games that are outside of your market. Works well if you like an out of town team, but if you want to watch the local team it's worthless.

dminor• 14 years ago

There are inexpensive VPNs you can use. Kind of perverse to watch a local team through a non-local proxy, but oh well.

tjtrapp• 14 years ago

i will cancel my TWC cable subscription in a millisecond once I can get NFL and HBO streamed to my house via my TWC internet connection. cable is so 1950s.

BryanB55• 14 years ago

Love it. I cancelled my Directv subscription last month for Hulu + Netflix. Haven't looked back. I'd like to see ShowTime go in this direction for US customers.

stripe2• 14 years ago

"... will allow customers in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark..." Then call it HBO Nordic ffs.

apl• 14 years ago

Which is, in fact, precisely what they're doing?

masklinn2• 14 years ago

I'm guessing his issue is that "nordic countries" is a well-defined geopolitical entity (it's even had a passport union since the mid-50s) composed of 5 nation-states (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) and their associated territories.

Assuming that associated territories are included in the offer to their parent country that still leaves Iceland out of "Nordic HBO", assuming the worst case (that only the territories explicitly listed are in) that leaves out Greenland, the Faroe and Åland as well.

masklinn2• 14 years ago

Not sure what the problem is, assuming danish realm autonomous countries and countries under scandinavian sovereignty (Svalbard) gets the access of their realm/sovereign, only Iceland is missing, so it's way closer to nordic than scandinavian (which would either disqualify finland or also be missing iceland)

JanneVee• 14 years ago

Nice one, giving it to the nordic countries first means that they can reduce the number of high-bandwidth seeders for their content on Bittorrent. At the same time profit from it.

blario• 14 years ago

Next VPS will be in Europe :-D

HBO cuts the cord, brings streaming-only service to Europe

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