4 ms·

If you're talking about HBO Go, I don't know how you gauge success, but if it's subscriber numbers I would take that with a grain of salt. I am a Comcast subsc

by yebyen 8y ago

If you're talking about HBO Go, I don't know how you gauge success, but if it's subscriber numbers I would take that with a grain of salt. I am a Comcast subscriber, and like many Comcast subscribers I'm sure, I have one of their boxes in my house, with the most basic Cable TV package, because if I don't take it my cost goes up (I mean the overall price of the monthly billed amount from Comcast/Xfinity). We get crappy quality SD letterbox channels including some local OTA channels that we can watch Jeopardy on, at lower quality than OTA whenever the antenna isn't doing the job. Oh, and HBO/On-Demand is also included. That includes HBO Go (but not HBO Now.) I don't use either HBO service and I don't know how they are different, at the risk of adding anecdata to an otherwise solid argument... Whether or not any of this works out to be a favorable deal for HBO, I can't say, but I hope this explains why I would say to take their digital subscriber numbers with a grain of salt. (On the other hand, I will actually pay for Showtime standalone when they have put out a new season of Homeland.)

vincentmarle 8y ago
HBO Go is what you get when you subscribe to HBO through your cable service, HBO Now is a direct subscription to HBO.
- yebyen 8y ago
  Thank you. That was clear-as-mud every time I wondered what the difference was before.
tzs 8y ago
> I am a Comcast subscriber, and like many Comcast subscribers I'm sure, I have one of their boxes in my house, with the most basic Cable TV package, because if I don't take it my cost goes up (I mean the overall price of the monthly billed amount from Comcast/Xfinity) This seems to vary region to region. Where I am (western Washington, west of Seattle) all the internet-only packages are cheaper than all the internet + TV packages at the same internet speed, as far as I can tell. When comparing the price with and without TV, are your taking into account the fees and equipment charges that go away if you don't have TV? Although here internet only is cheaper than internet + TV, it isn't much cheaper. I've got 400 Mb/s internet, Preferred TV (220+ channels + Starz), and Phone, and dropping down to just 400 Mb/s internet would only knock $20 off the base price. That's a small enough change that it is probably less than I'd end up spending on streaming subscription and rental services to make up for the lost TV. However, dropping TV and phone would also drop $11/month for the DVR service, $8/month for the broadcast TV fee, $6.30/month for the regional sports fee, and $4.60 for the franchise fee (and maybe some sales tax, if any of those fees are taxable). That's another $30/month, so we are talking $50/month less on my total bill. Now I would come out ahead even if I have to subscribe to multiple streaming services for my TV.
- yebyen 8y ago
  The TV deal is a promotional pricing structure, I have found that you can get them to offer you a new promotional rate if you threaten to send their hardware back and downgrade your service to Internet-only. (Again this may vary from region to region, I am in the midwest/Indiana in case it matters.) These threats are credible when they know you have the crappiest TV service they offer and you probably aren't even using it but 30 minutes a day when Jeopardy comes on, but for some reason the sales reps seem to be pretty heavily incentivized to make sure you have some kind of TV service, even if you don't get any addons bundled with it. (Probably getting a kickback from the government, that's how they get their listening devices into your living room... /s) I've declined as many services as I can otherwise, I don't have DVR service, HD channels (I get about 10 channels, all SD), extra super-premium internet package (mine claims up to 150Mbit, while it is not the lowest they offer, it's also not the highest...) I don't get a paper bill in the mail, or manual payments for billing (all of those things also cost ~$10 extra each); still my cable internet service is good, and it does come with HBO as I mentioned. (I'm pretty sure it's standard def HBO over the wire, and that's another good reason to register for and use the bundled HBO Go service at least once...) I think that $8/mo broadcast TV fee is the only one you mentioned that I can actually identify on my bill. And as I've had it explained to me, I would not be able to qualify for any promotional pricing after my first year of service without that.
rgbrenner 8y ago
HBO had $8.6B [0] in revenue last year.. For comparison, Netflix had $11.7. HBO is clearly succeeding.. 0. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hbo-had-its-largest-subscriber-growth-ever-in-2017-2018-02-01 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hbo-had-its-largest-subscr...
- yebyen 8y ago
  Yes, but how much of that can you attribute to direct internet sales? > HBO’s direct-to-consumer subscriptions, which include HBO Now sign-ups through internet-based distributors like Amazon and DirecTV Now, have topped five million in the U.S. > 5,000,000 * 12mo * $15 > $900,000,000 I'm sure not saying that is a sign they are not successful, but unless I'm missing something, $7.5B of those revenue are probably not related to their direct-to-customer subscriptions or internet streaming products. (I'm not sure what kind of gatekeeping I am engaging in here, but it would be interesting to know what HBO's actual sales numbers are wrt every particular mode of distribution channel.) Yeah they're getting something from every Comcast subscriber that ostensibly pays $10 for the cheapest TV package or better that bundles HBO, I just know that I'm not using my cable TV service at all, or HBO Go enough to warrant paying ${netflix_subscription} many dollars direct to them and I'd probably cancel it today, if it wouldn't ultimately end up costing me something for the trouble in the long run.
nobleach 8y ago
Those SD letter boxed locals are Comcast actively degrading the signal, so they can sell the HD version (which is how they receive it) at an inflated price. I sometimes think this might be illegal to tamper with a broadcast signal to degrade it on purpose.
- yebyen 8y ago
  Amen! I was told it would cost me another $10/mo to add HD service, and that I probably wouldn't get any new channels. And I will still be dealing with commercials. No thanks. It doesn't cost you anything extra to allow me to decrypt the commercials. I'll take my chances with OTA signals if I'm still going to be stuck watching commercials.

by yebyen 8y ago

vincentmarle 8y ago

HBO Go is what you get when you subscribe to HBO through your cable service, HBO Now is a direct subscription to HBO.

yebyen 8y ago
Thank you. That was clear-as-mud every time I wondered what the difference was before.

tzs 8y ago

> I am a Comcast subscriber, and like many Comcast subscribers I'm sure, I have one of their boxes in my house, with the most basic Cable TV package, because if I don't take it my cost goes up (I mean the overall price of the monthly billed amount from Comcast/Xfinity) This seems to vary region to region. Where I am (western Washington, west of Seattle) all the internet-only packages are cheaper than all the internet + TV packages at the same internet speed, as far as I can tell. When comparing the price with and without TV, are your taking into account the fees and equipment charges that go away if you don't have TV? Although here internet only is cheaper than internet + TV, it isn't much cheaper. I've got 400 Mb/s internet, Preferred TV (220+ channels + Starz), and Phone, and dropping down to just 400 Mb/s internet would only knock $20 off the base price. That's a small enough change that it is probably less than I'd end up spending on streaming subscription and rental services to make up for the lost TV. However, dropping TV and phone would also drop $11/month for the DVR service, $8/month for the broadcast TV fee, $6.30/month for the regional sports fee, and $4.60 for the franchise fee (and maybe some sales tax, if any of those fees are taxable). That's another $30/month, so we are talking $50/month less on my total bill. Now I would come out ahead even if I have to subscribe to multiple streaming services for my TV.

yebyen 8y ago
The TV deal is a promotional pricing structure, I have found that you can get them to offer you a new promotional rate if you threaten to send their hardware back and downgrade your service to Internet-only. (Again this may vary from region to region, I am in the midwest/Indiana in case it matters.) These threats are credible when they know you have the crappiest TV service they offer and you probably aren't even using it but 30 minutes a day when Jeopardy comes on, but for some reason the sales reps seem to be pretty heavily incentivized to make sure you have some kind of TV service, even if you don't get any addons bundled with it. (Probably getting a kickback from the government, that's how they get their listening devices into your living room... /s) I've declined as many services as I can otherwise, I don't have DVR service, HD channels (I get about 10 channels, all SD), extra super-premium internet package (mine claims up to 150Mbit, while it is not the lowest they offer, it's also not the highest...) I don't get a paper bill in the mail, or manual payments for billing (all of those things also cost ~$10 extra each); still my cable internet service is good, and it does come with HBO as I mentioned. (I'm pretty sure it's standard def HBO over the wire, and that's another good reason to register for and use the bundled HBO Go service at least once...) I think that $8/mo broadcast TV fee is the only one you mentioned that I can actually identify on my bill. And as I've had it explained to me, I would not be able to qualify for any promotional pricing after my first year of service without that.

rgbrenner 8y ago

HBO had $8.6B [0] in revenue last year.. For comparison, Netflix had $11.7. HBO is clearly succeeding.. 0. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hbo-had-its-largest-subscriber-growth-ever-in-2017-2018-02-01 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hbo-had-its-largest-subscr...

yebyen 8y ago
Yes, but how much of that can you attribute to direct internet sales? > HBO’s direct-to-consumer subscriptions, which include HBO Now sign-ups through internet-based distributors like Amazon and DirecTV Now, have topped five million in the U.S. > 5,000,000 * 12mo * $15 > $900,000,000 I'm sure not saying that is a sign they are not successful, but unless I'm missing something, $7.5B of those revenue are probably not related to their direct-to-customer subscriptions or internet streaming products. (I'm not sure what kind of gatekeeping I am engaging in here, but it would be interesting to know what HBO's actual sales numbers are wrt every particular mode of distribution channel.) Yeah they're getting something from every Comcast subscriber that ostensibly pays $10 for the cheapest TV package or better that bundles HBO, I just know that I'm not using my cable TV service at all, or HBO Go enough to warrant paying ${netflix_subscription} many dollars direct to them and I'd probably cancel it today, if it wouldn't ultimately end up costing me something for the trouble in the long run.

nobleach 8y ago

Those SD letter boxed locals are Comcast actively degrading the signal, so they can sell the HD version (which is how they receive it) at an inflated price. I sometimes think this might be illegal to tamper with a broadcast signal to degrade it on purpose.

yebyen 8y ago
Amen! I was told it would cost me another $10/mo to add HD service, and that I probably wouldn't get any new channels. And I will still be dealing with commercials. No thanks. It doesn't cost you anything extra to allow me to decrypt the commercials. I'll take my chances with OTA signals if I'm still going to be stuck watching commercials.