HBO Go

HBO Go is a TV Everywhere video on demand streaming service offered by the American premium cable network HBO. It allows HBO subscribers to stream selections of HBO content, including current and past series, films, specials, and sporting events, through either the HBO website, or apps on mobile devices, video game consoles, and digital media players. The service first launched on February 18, 2010.

HBO Go
Type of site
Video on demand
Predecessor(s)HBO on Broadband
HeadquartersNew York, New York,
United States
Area servedNorth America (deprecated)
European Union
Latin America
Indonesia
Philippines
Thailand[1]
Vietnam
Taiwan
Malaysia
Singapore
Hong Kong
India
Key peopleAnn Sarnoff (Chairman, WarnerMedia Studios & Networks Group)
ParentHome Box Office, Inc.
(WarnerMedia Entertainment)
URLplay.hbogo.com
RegistrationSubscription to HBO through participating pay television provider required to access content
LaunchedFebruary 18, 2010 (2010-02-18)
Current statusDeprecated in the U.S, Active internationally

In the U.S., HBO Go currently co-exists with the HBO Max streaming platform launched in May 2020; the latter includes all content available on HBO Go plus additional content from parent company WarnerMedia. WarnerMedia has reached agreements with the vast majority of HBO's American cable, satellite and telco distributors making HBO Max available at no extra charge to existing HBO subscribers.[2][3] However, HBO Max does not yet support certain devices supported by HBO Go, including Roku and Amazon Fire TV, as new deals have not yet been reached with their manufacturers.[3] On June 12, 2020, WarnerMedia announced that the HBO Go platform would be decommissioned in the U.S. on July 31, 2020; on that date, HBO Go's mobile and digital media player apps were removed from app stores, and those who still had the app on their devices were unable to advance past its splash screen.[4] As of August 1, 2020, providers that have not yet made an HBO Max deal continue to allow customer access to HBO Go (mainly Altice USA's brands, Mediacom and smaller cable providers yet to come to terms with WarnerMedia on HBO Max carriage, and closed-circuit university television systems which had not had personnel available during the COVID-19 pandemic to negotiate a new contract for HBO Max), though only through the HBO Go desktop website.[5]

The "HBO Go" brand is also used in some international markets for over-the-top services offering HBO programming.

Overview

HBO Go is the successor to HBO on Broadband, which was originally launched in January 2008 to Time Warner Cable customers on the Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin nodes and headends.[6][7] Programming content available on the service consisted of 400 hours of feature and HBO original television films (including 130 movie titles that rotated monthly), specials and original series that could be downloaded to computers, at no extra charge for HBO subscribers; in order to access HBO on Broadband content, users had to be a digital cable customer that had a subscription to HBO, and used Time Warner Cable's Roadrunner cable modem service.

The service launched nationally as HBO Go on February 18, 2010, initially available through Verizon FiOS.[8] Over the following years, the service expanded to other providers including AT&T U-verse, Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable,[9] DirecTV,[10] Dish Network,[11] Suddenlink Communications,[12] and Charter Communications in some states,[13][14] as well as through vMVPD services AT&T TV Now, AT&T TV and Hulu. The service can be accessed through a web browser or through apps for select smart TV sets, Amazon Fire, iOS, Android, Chromecast, Roku, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

At launch, the service was accessible only on personal computers via the HBO website. Applications for iOS and Android devices were released on April 29, 2011, making the service available on smartphones and tablet computers.[15] The app had over one million downloads in its first week, and was downloaded over three million times by the end of June 2011.[16][17]

In October 2011, Roku streaming players became the first television-connected devices to support the service, and availability was later rolled out to the Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation consoles, Samsung Smart TVs, and Xbox consoles. Availability on set-top boxes and gaming consoles is determined by individual cable providers in the United States with some omissions. Currently Comcast does not support the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Fire TV and did not support Roku players until late 2014.[18][19] Sling TV subscribers who receive HBO through that service are unable to access HBO GO, since HBO's live feed and on-demand content is available through the Sling TV apps.[20] The same also applies to PlayStation Vue subscribers except they also have access to HBO Now.[21]

In January 2019, HBO Go was dropped from PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Samsung Smart TVs released before 2013.[22]

HBO Now
Main article: HBO Now

On October 15, 2014, following a trial of a similar service in Nordic Europe, HBO announced that it planned to launch an over-the-top subscription service in 2015, which would allow "cord cutters", "cord nevers", and subscribers to basic cable packages to subscribe to HBO without requiring either a subscription to a pay television provider or to a premium bundle. The decision marks a significant change to HBO's business model, as the service will be marketed directly to consumers rather than through television providers. The new offering will primarily target "cord cutters" and "cord nevers", who primarily use online video services, such as Netflix or Hulu, to stream video content and television programming rather than subscribing to a cable television or satellite provider.[23][24] The new service, HBO Now, was officially unveiled on March 9, 2015 for a launch in April of that year, with mobile and digital media player support exclusive to Apple devices at launch.[25]

The over-the-top service was launched in Latin America in June 2017, although under the name HBO Go.

Content

HBO Go streams a selection of theatrically released films (via film studios that maintain distribution deals with HBO including 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and network sister company Warner Bros. Pictures) with a significant number of titles added and removed from the service every month. HBO original series are available on a permanent basis. New episodes of current series are typically available for streaming beginning at the time of their initial broadcast in the Eastern Time Zone on the linear HBO channel.[26]

However, HBO Go does not carry several past HBO series, such as Tales from the Crypt, Tenacious D, 1st & Ten, Da Ali G Show, or The Ricky Gervais Show.[27] The Larry Sanders Show and Arliss were initially unavailable but added in 2016 and 2018 respectively.[28][29] Moreover, unlike TV Everywhere services offered by most other broadcast and cable-satellite television networks, HBO Go does not provide access to near-real-time streams of HBO's linear channels. (Max Go, the TV Everywhere service of sister premium service Cinemax, also does not offer streams of any of that network's linear television channels.)

Platforms
gollark: (Which is one of the "off-the-shelf programs with random hacky patches")
gollark: I think I currently run those on the apioforum.
gollark: osmarks.net does *also* have backend services, which are a fun mix of off-the-shelf programs, some of which slowly accreted random hacky patches to the code, literal nginx configuration (400 lines and counting!), and fully custom things I wrote which are mostly JS or Python programs and mostly act as glue code.
gollark: Well, it is also possible to use hyperscript or something and server-render it fairly easily.
gollark: Oh, Pug.

References
  1. Usanee Mongkolporn, Asina Pornwasin, Europe,"AIS signs deal to exclusively air HBO", The Nation, Bangkok, Retrieved on 7 September 2018.
  2. Hayes, Dade; Hayes, Dade (2020-05-20). "WarnerMedia Locks HBO Max Distribution Deals With Seven New Partners, From Pay-TV To PlayStation, Xbox And Samsung". Deadline. Archived from the original on May 20, 2020. Retrieved 2020-05-27.
  3. Flint, Joe; Rizzo, Lillian (May 27, 2020). "HBO Max Leaves AT&T at Odds With Amazon and Roku". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  4. Solsman, Joan E. (2020-06-12). "HBO is getting rid of HBO Go, renaming HBO Now since HBO Max is live". CNET. Retrieved 2020-06-12.
  5. "HBO Go affiliate list as of August 1, 2020". Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  6. Gary Levin (January 21, 2008). "It's not TV, it's HBO – on your computer". USA Today. Gannett Company. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
  7. Peter Lauria (January 21, 2008). "HBO on Broadband in Restricted Rollout". New York Post. News Corporation. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
  8. Georg Szalai (February 17, 2010). "HBO GO heads to FiOS". The Hollywood Reporter. Guggenheim Digital Media. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
  9. R. Thomas Umstead (March 2, 2011). "Cox To Offer HBO To Go". Multichannel News. NewBay Media.
  10. "DIRECTV to Launch HBO GO and MAX GO, April 12". DirecTV (Press release). April 11, 2011.
  11. "Dish Network Offers HBO GO and MAX GO, Presenting More Than 1,800 On-Demand Movies and Original Series to Online Customers". Dish Network (Press release). April 21, 2011. Archived from the original on May 11, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2014.
  12. Todd Spangler (April 26, 2011). "Suddenlink Takes HBO And Cinemax To Go". Multichannel News. NewBay Media.
  13. Todd Spangler (July 21, 2011). "Charter Officially Delivers HBO, Cinemax To Go". Multichannel News. NewBay Media.
  14. "HBO GO / MAX GO". Charter Communications. Archived from the original on February 5, 2015. Retrieved March 23, 2015.
  15. Ryan Lawler (April 29, 2011). "HBO Go Now Available on iPad, iPhone and Android". Gigaom. GigaOmniMedia, Inc.
  16. Todd Spangler (May 10, 2011). "HBOGo Apps Top 1 Million Downloads In First Week". Multichannel News. NewBay Media. Retrieved March 23, 2015.
  17. Kevin Sullivan (June 27, 2011). "HBO GO passes 3 million downloads. Is it worth it?". Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc. Retrieved March 23, 2015.
  18. "HBO Go: Activate". Home Box Office Inc.
  19. Anu Passary (December 18, 2014). "Comcast Allows HBO Go and Showtime Streaming on Roku". Tech Times.
  20. https://help.hbogo.com/hc/en-us/articles/205404147-Can-I-subscribe-to-HBO-GO-by-using-Sling-as-my-TV-provider-%5B%5D
  21. Dwayne Benefield. PS Vue: HBO, Cinemax, New Ultra Plan Arrive Today, playstation.com, September 29, 2016.
  22. Device support changes: PlayStation 3, Samsung TV, and Xbox 360
  23. David Lieberman (October 15, 2014). "HBO To Launch Stand-Alone Online Service, Without Cable, In 2015: Time Warner Investor Day". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Media Corporation. Retrieved October 16, 2014.
  24. Derek Thompson (October 15, 2014). "HBO Go-It-Alone: There Goes the Cable Bundle?". The Atlantic. Atlantic Media. Retrieved October 16, 2014.
  25. Chris Welch (March 9, 2015). "HBO Now coming in April for $14.99 per month, Apple TV price cut to $69". The Verge. Vox Media.
  26. Jonathan Vankin (April 6, 2014). "'Game Of Thrones' Premiere Live Stream Online, But Will HBO Go Crash Again?". Inquisitr.
  27. Erik Adams, Sam Adams; Phil Dyess-Nugent, Will Harris and Kyle Ryan (May 15, 2013). "It's not TV—and it's not available on HBO Go: 27-plus HBO originals unavailable from the streaming service". The A.V. Club.
  28. It's Official: 'The Larry Sanders Show' Coming to HBO Go and HBO Now in September. The Hollywood Reporter. 30 July 2016.
  29. HBO Original Series Arli$$: The Art of the Sports Superagen Available to Stream on HBO NOW and HBO GO Starting September 14, 2018. The Futon Critic. 23 August 2018.
  30. Adriana Lee (December 16, 2014). "HBO Go Hits Amazon Fire TV, May Bring Cord-Cutting Service Too". ReadWrite.
  31. "HBO Go gets an Android TV app, but not for Comcast subscribers".
  32. Roberto Baldwin (June 19, 2013). "HBO GO Finally Arrives on Apple TV". Wired. Condé Nast.
  33. Jim O'Neill (November 22, 2013). "HBO Go Launches on Chromecast as Mobile Video Mainstreams". Ooyala.
  34. "HBO Latin America Press Room". www.hbolapress.com. Retrieved 2019-05-20.
  35. "Hollywood blockbusters are coming to Toggle with HBO GO". 13 February 2019. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  36. "HBO Go Available on PS4 Later Today". Playstation. Sony Interactive. March 3, 2015.
  37. "Introducing Roku LT and a Sneak Peek at HBO GO". Roku. October 11, 2011. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
  38. "Roku Channel Store". Roku. Archived from the original on September 18, 2012. Retrieved October 5, 2012.
  39. Andrew Webster (February 17, 2012). "HBO Go now available on select Samsung Smart TVs". The Verge. Vox Media.
  40. http://blog.tivo.com/2016/02/tivo-adds-hbo-go-and-toon-goggles-the-perfect-dvr-for-all-ages/
  41. Eddie Makuch (June 4, 2014). "HBO Go, Twitter, Vine Coming to Xbox One By End of 2014". GameSpot. CBS Interactive.
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