HBO: Time for a Change

HBO has some of the best programming on TV, since they are able to do anything they want. But with this boundless freedom comes a price. The super premium tired network comes tied with many strings, forcing the consumer to buy certain packages to just even have the possibility to pay for HBO. Paying for the chance to pay is always an added benefit in life. But one major upside to being a HBO customer, next to the programming, is HBO Go, which allows the user to view the entire HBO catalog of shows from the beginning of HBO. The Wire, Sopranos, Sex in the City, Oz, Six Feet Under and current shows: Game of Thrones, Veep, Girls, True Blood and more. Of course there are limitations to the number of accounts that can access one customer's HBO Go account, but there are many platforms that support HBO (Xbox, iPad, iPhone, Kindle Fire, etc).

But where HBO is dropping the ball is in the way people now consume media. If I was to go on iTunes and try to pay for Game of Thrones Season 2, I would be out of luck. The same could be said for Amazon. And if i wanted to buy the DVD, well that wouldn't happen for almost a year. So that leaves me the option of either becoming an HBO customer or downloading the show from somewhere else. And lots of people have done just that. Game of Thrones Season 2 will mostly likely be the most illegally downloaded show of 2012. And more people illegally downloaded the show than watched it on HBO, and millions watched it on HBO. But for the consumers who can't or doesn't subscribe to HBO and wants to pay for the content, the internet has started an online campaign to change HBO's mind.

Take My Money HBO (http://takemymoneyhbo.com/) allows people to say how much they would pay for HBO Go and tweet it to the world. It seems that the average price per month people are willing to pay for HBO Go is somewhere around $12. HBO responded to this campaign and a TechCrunch article where some of the realities of trying to do a monthly payment wouldn't work for HBO. HBO agreed with the TechCrunch article, but seems to acknowledge the problem and may be working on a solution.

I see the problem that HBO is facing, since they need to change to fit they audience, who is willing to pay, but can't ignore the deals and contracts with cable / satellite providers who compensate HBO. HBO would possibly lose millions, if not more. But they are losing millions of viewers by cutting out pay per episode on iTunes and Amazon the next day. Waiting 7 or 8 months if just too long and by then those who want to see the show have already downloaded it from another source.