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Uncategorized Thursday, June 7th 2012 at 8:35 am

HBO Responds to Your #takemymoneyHBO Pleas for Standalone HBO GO

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Yesterday, the site Take My Money HBO offered HBO fans to communicate via Twitter what they would be willing to pay for a standalone HBO GO streaming account. It seems that in the midst of all the #takemymoneyHBO, the cable channel responded in kind. We all called out for a legal way to stream HBO, and HBO’s Twitter account whispered, “No.”

In their Tweet, HBO thanks fans for “the love” they showed by pummeling their account with dollar amounts. It then pointed followers to this post by TechCrunch writer Ryan Lawler saying that his interpretation is the correct one. This is where things get a bit depressing.

Lawler’s piece made two important points. The first is that when two samplings of the last 1,500 Tweets tagged #takemymoneyHBO were averaged, it showed that respondents were willing to pay about $12 a month for streaming HBO content. Interestingly, HBO’s per-customer cut of its 29 million subscribers only nets it about $7-$8 per customer.

Lawler’s second point — and this is the significant one — is that despite making nearly double per person, HBO will probably never explore standalone streaming as an option. His reasoning is that the premium channel is too closely tied to its network partners and wouldn’t want to shoulder the burden of running a Netflix-style system by itself. From TechCrunch:

Every time someone signs up for cable or satellite service, one of the inevitable perks is a free six- or 12-month subscription to HBO. [...] What would happen if HBO no longer had the pay TV industry’s marketing team propping it up all the time? The results would be disastrous, and there’s no way that HBO could make up in online volume the number of subscribers it would lose from cable.

In reality, HBO GO is less about wider viewership and more about adding value to existing customers. If anything, its re-enforcing HBO’s exclusivity: Not only do you get to watch all the latest programs wherever and whenever you are, you can also watch all the shows that used to be on HBO because you’re a special member of the awesome HBO club. Suddenly, those enormous cable bills seem a bit more palatable.

Though HBO seems like the golden goose, laying hit shows with production values and performances that rival some movies, it can only do so because of the system in which it exists. HBO needs cable providers, and will probably stay there as long as it makes economic sense to do so. However, to soothe our broken hearts, HBO did add a teasing “for now.” But I’m not going to get my hopes up.

(Media Decoder via Techmeme)

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  • Anonymous

    I WILL NOT pay the cable fees.  No way.  I do pay for Netflix, and I would have added HBO Go to my stable of entertainment venues.  Cable, though, is way overpriced.  I’ll stick with books and the Internet as my primary downtime activities.

  • Guest

    what’s a book?

  • Guest

    Stupid. They are basically saying they don’t like money. I refuse to pay Comcast, ATT, etc over 100 bucks a month just for something to watch. I use all of the major streaming apps and would have gladly added this one. 

  • http://twitter.com/MikeDerges Michael Derges

    I honestly can’t see how they can afford not to. This has only been going on a few hours and still the tweets pour in. People want to give HBO money instead of pirating. The fact that HBO are involved in business practices that aren’t scalable doesn’t really answer anything.
    Don’t HBO owe it to their shareholders and to their studios and artists to make money?

  • Brent Stewart

    The way to go is some sort of partnership with Netflix where they provide the content and Netflix provides the infrastructure. But unfortunately this would piss off the cable providers who are HBO’s bread-n-butter – the hand that feeds them – because cable providers loath external streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. The backlash from the cable providers is not worth the risk and this whole situation puts them in a catch-22.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=687991878 Dave Diem Martinez

    Not having standalone streaming is a grave error. Since I can’t add links, google “theoatmeal game of thrones” for the best comic ever explaining why they should allow streaming.

    Fact: If they don’t have a method for people to reasonably pay, people will pirate.

  • Reptile686

    Cable tv has been way more on the ball at trying to adapt to technology changes than the music industry, but still… I pay comcast a sizeable chunk of change for my internet connection already. Why can’t I bundle HBO GO with my comcast internet connection instead of shitty cable that has no other channel I want to watch?

    The modern way to shop for anything – music, apps, whatever - is to pick and choose what we want, not by a whole bundle of crap that we don’t want just to get a couple things we do. The cable companies are going to have to restructure their business model or someone else is going to find a way to out-compete them.

  • Reptile686

    Well having said that, I do realize there’s probably a lot of people that just sit around and flip channels that will settle for whatever steaming pile of fecal matter the television throws their way. I’m looking at you, History Channel.

    *also I meant buy, not by

  • Kitty

    Hey HBO…can watch all episodes of current and previous seasons…as long as you aren’t on Xfinity!!! 

  • Joffrey

    HBO LOVES money. 

    1500 tweets (as of this article’s posting) aren’t really a big deal to someone as big as HBO. They have 28MM subscribers. That is how they can afford not to. Scale. Just because people complain on Twitter doesn’t mean that their paltry 12 dollars a month means anything. A million tweets? That’s still not even 10 percent of their existing base. ”Hey HBO, you interested in earning up to $18000 a month (all while working from home?) ” Yeah right.Just because everyone became ok with pirating content because they feel they are being wronged by not being given more options does not mean that pirating became ok. It just means people lost some of their morals. 

    If you want something: pay for it. If you can’t afford it: tough. Everything can’t be custom built for all of your needs.If cable subscriptions drop, HBO will find somewhere new, but this model has worked for a very long time so don’t hold your breath.

  • http://www.facebook.com/zeonchar Amanda M. Ramsey

    Well, looks like I’ll continue pirating HBO. There’s no way I’m going to pay for a $50 cable subscription just for one or two good shows on HBO. 

  • Guest

    those files you load onto ereaders.

  • Jms333

    Alright then. Pirating is free anyways, and people will just continue on instead of HBO finding a way to making alot more from people who are willing to pay. For the average pirate, it doesnt hurt them at all. Most just wanted to actually help for a change. I’m sure the mindset to many is “Well…that sucks, oh well back to getting it for free”

  • Charham

    And then there’s the poor sots like us who’s tv ‘provider’ refuses to carry HBO Go, even if you have HBO. 

  • http://disaggregate.eduardocolmenares.com/ Eduardo

    FTFA: ” His reasoning is that the premium channel is too closely tied to its
    network partners and wouldn’t want to shoulder the burden of running a
    Netflix-style system by itself.”

    Then let people pay for the subscription through Netflix or Hulu. Problem solved. Netflix plus a $12 month HBO Go subscription > Cable plus HBO.
     
    Seems to me that HBO, or, more importantly, Time Warner is simply stuck in an old model way of thinking.

  • Anonymous

    I think “never” is a strong word. Things will change, at the moment there’s still many people are stuck in the “old business model” as far as consuming media. Sure there’s many that would be able to work with “GO” but the subscription would go down drastically for people that don’t have a method of getting GO, no iPad or iPhone or don’t want to hold a tablet to watch something. Don’t have Boxee or PS3 or whatever other addition to the TV does HBO GO. If their subscription gets cut in half maybe they’ll break even, but that’s a big risk.

    I think it will happen, not just with HBO but with other providers, they’ll become available on their own somehow… join forces… and then you’ll be able to bundle it together to save money… and it will kind of come full circle back to something like cable but online.

  • Sheila

    has anyone seen hbo offered for 10.00, all i want it for is to watch 12 weeks of true blood , all that other stuff they can keep, i dont think it is worth 16.00 a month

  • Aaronacj

    I would pay for HBO go… right now they get 0 of my money because i D/l everything i want to see. If i could get HBO go like NF i would. I will not pay for cable.

  • Shawn

    Not to play devils advocate but the 12 bucks per month they would make per customer is not accurate since every person that would subscribe to hbo got would give there account info to 3-5 people  which would come up to about 2.40 per month not really worth the money

  • some dude

    this is 2012. if I only want hbo I’m going to only buy hbo (but whoops I can’t) guess pirating is my only option…