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Comment by teilo | Hacker News Reader

I know nothing of HBO's revenue numbers. But I would predict this much: If HBO Go were available as a standalone subscription, the number of copies of Game of Thrones that are pirated would drop substantially, and HBO's overall revenue would go up, not down. If they offered a Game of Thrones only option at a discount, their revenue would go way up. Yes, armchair quarterbacking, so take it for what it's worth.

I pay for my TV, but I'm a cable cutter. I pay for Netflix and Hulu Plus. I pay for particular series on iTunes that I cannot get anywhere else. I will not under any circumstances go back to cable or dish. Therefore I will not ever be paying for HBO. But I would purchase an HBO Go subscription in a heartbeat if I had the option. I have to think I represent a fairly significant number of people in the same position.

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I believe them when they say that net revenue would go -down- ( https://twitter.com/HBO/status/210390531623227392 ).

Right now they have a gigantic sales force by using the sales staff of all the cable and satellite companies, plus they get to punt on all billing and customer support to the same partner companies. If they were to start selling straight to the customer, hbo would need to staff up their own billing/support, but more importantly, they bite the hand that feeds them. Cable companies wouldn't be pushing nearly as hard to sign people up for HBO if it wasn't going to lock customers in to cable. You'd need a -lot- of sign ups to make up for cable companies switching to promoting the heck out of a different premium channel.

I think the smart move is to milk the gravy train of cable partnerships for a few more years until cable subscriptions fall off more. Then switch to dealing with customers directly. But that's a huge transition to staff up a company and start dealing with end users, and it isn't the risk-free cost-free no brainer that we assume it is when we say HBO should just take our money.

The other major factor is that they can often predict income from cable subscribers, where online-only could potentially come and go as they please. If you only like Curb Your Enthusiasm, sign up when it premiers, cancel when it ends. Or worse, sign up when it ends and watch it over the course of a month. Compare this to cable subscribers, where you get a reduced rate (often) for a three month block, so long as you stay subscribed. It's a lot more predictable this way, and can extend out to predicting how many won't actually cancel, etc.

In the world where HBO can predict income, they can afford to take a leap and buy a whole season of an expensive show like Game of Thrones on a gamble (which it was). Online-only makes this comfort go away, reducing the potential quality of the product, and creating a spiral of losing subscribers.

"If you only like Curb Your Enthusiasm, sign up when it premiers, cancel when it ends"

You still have to have an existing cable television subscription for this.

In today's model, yes. I meant it more in the context of digital-only subscriptions, where you could theoretically sign up for a month of service and get all the programming you wanted. In that sitaution, HBO can't plan their income sinnce they will have intermittent spurts of subscribers with no expectation of sustained income.

I think House of Cards probably changed the situation somewhat: if Netflix can keep putting out exclusive content of that caliber HBO is going to lose a lot of customers. The week after that show premiered HBO enabled AirPlay on their iPhone app, which by the way is fantastic. I bet they're already prepared to go the Netflix route and are just watching the numbers for the right time to strike.

I'm so glad Netflix went out to prove this can be done. Truth is many cable providers have exclusive content like DirecTV and Friday Night Lights. It never really worked because the cost to subscribe to cable for one show was so high. Netflix is much more economical and to have a Davind Fincher directed pilot starring Kevin Spacey is proof. Not to mention how accessible the show is.

It's not that simple. Netflix uses traditional channels for international distribution of House of Cards. For instance, it premiered on russian ad-supported TV just few days after US 'release'.

I guess even with 30M paying customers they can't support even one show. HBO has more than one.

> If HBO Go were available as a standalone subscription, the number of copies of Game of Thrones that are pirated would drop substantially, and HBO's overall revenue would go up, not down. If they offered a Game of Thrones only option at a discount, their revenue would go way up.

The problem with that idea is the cable companies. Back in 2012, the contract between HBO and the cable providers was up for renegotiation. HBO wanted to turn HBO Go into a standalone service; the cable companies basically said that if HBO were to do that, they would drop HBO. While I am sure that HBO would make tons of money from a web-only service, I am guessing that their cable numbers are better, for now. Whether those numbers stay the same in 2016, when the contract is up for renegotiation again, remains to be seen.

That is called "negotiation". It's unclear if the cable provides would have actually slit their own throats. There are a LOT of cable subscribers that wouldn't have the means to use HBO Go, and they would be pissed off.

"There are a LOT of cable subscribers that wouldn't have the means to use HBO Go"

I find it doubtful that the people who subscribe to the most premium cable packages (~$150+) could not instead buy a Roku or use their existing PC /gaming console. At the very least, HBO could bundle a device with a 1 or 2 year subscription.

I think HBO would love to be able to offer HBO GO as a standalone thing, but their hands are tied by the Cable companies, who wouldn't want that as less people would be forced to pay for cable.

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