7 ms·

HBO CEO: "...an internet-based model [for TV] is just a fad"

93 points by mschen 14y ago

guelo 14y ago
HBO does not need your money, they do really well selling their subscriptions. HBO's business is based on charging $200/year to subscribers in exchange for exclusive content. By offering a la carte shows at $9.99 or whatever they would be breaking the exclusivity that they sell to their real customers. The pirates' argument seems to be that HBO does not have the right to produce exclusive content for their subscribers, as if access to all entertainment is some fundamental right, it is not.
- krakensden 14y ago
  Those are all good points, but it does seem silly that they refuse to sell subscriptions to the uncabled youths for $250 a year.
  - untog 14y ago
    The cable companies would be extremely unhappy about that, and may drop them.
- kbolino 14y ago
  Here's a hint: paying $9.99 (or $0.99 or $0.01, if that's the price that's set) makes you a real customer. The definition of customer is "someone who exchanged his money for your goods/services"; it does not matter the quantity. All money is equally green. Exclusivity is another name for rent-seeking. HBO has every right to publish (and not publish) its content in the manner of its choosing, but I don't have to like it. I bought the Game of Thrones books instead; which I was able to do, at physical and virtual locations, individually or in a boxed set, at a fair and reasonable price, at my leisure. Oh, and I can resell them after I've finished reading them. Funny, that.
sp332 14y ago
You have to realize, HBO's customers are not the subscribers. HBO's customers are cable companies. The cable companies deal with the subscribers and just keep track of how much to pay HBO every month. HBO doesn't even know who the subscribers are! They don't have any identification or billing information. That's why they can't sell to customers directly.
- wmf 14y ago
  Don't you think there are Internet distributors who would be happy to collect money for HBO? All they would have to do is allow it.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  They don't have any identification or billing information. That's why they can't sell to customers directly. (Shrug) All they have to do is ask. It's as if they don't want to be able to sell directly to their viewers. Other publishing industries are frantic at the thought of middlemen like Apple and Amazon owning subscriber relationships. Yet HBO and Showtime seem to actively prefer it that way. I don't get it... don't they understand the risks of putting all of their eggs in the cable provider's basket?
  - sp332 14y ago
    They have no customer support desks, no personally identifiable information, no monstrous billing system. Turning from a B2B company to a B2C company is not as easy as flipping a switch!
    - CamperBob2 14y ago
      Still doesn't explain why other publishers want to be able to do this stuff while TV studios do not.
dm8 14y ago
It wasn't a while ago someone from DEC made bone headed prediction - "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." I don't understand why media companies don't get it that future is Internet. iTunes and Netflix are shining examples of that. What more evidence do they want? Edit: Added Netflix reference
- DiabloD3 14y ago
  I thought that was IBM, not DEC?
  - CrownStem 14y ago
    That was said by Ken Olsen, CEO of DEC, in 1977- At a meeting of the World Future Society, of all places. Granted, he later said that he was referring to large computers common at that time.
    - Fuzzwah 14y ago
      My little bit of snopes'ing pulled up an interesting ass covering that Olsen made in reference to this quote, which as time goes on still sounds equally as bad: > I did make a number of statements and still make statements that people don't understand about computers, or delight in misquoting. A long time ago when the common knowledge was that PCs would run our lives in every detail, I said that if you stole something from the refrigerator at night you didn't want to enter this into the computer so that it would . . . mess up the computer plans for coming meals.
  - Fuzzwah 14y ago
    Snopes tells me that it was Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, in 1977. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp
- lesterbuck 14y ago
  That was an out of context quote by Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation. In fact, Ken Olsen was a hacker, just like us, and had a computer in his house which he used for work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Olsen#Quotations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Olsen#Quotations
psykotic 14y ago
Does this remind you of someone else? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7874307/Prince-the-internets-completely-over.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7874307/Prince-th...
- etfb 14y ago
  "Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein."
nazgulnarsil 14y ago
"HBO Go requires a cable subscription" If I was an HBO shareholder I'd laugh while I sold.
- wvenable 14y ago
  HBO is bound by all kinds of license agreements to the cable providers and that is their bread and butter. They simply cannot provide Internet purchasing of their content. You don't really know what the CEO actually believes because saying the Internet is a fad plays directly into his market (the cable companies). At this point in time, it might make more economic sense for HBO to ignore the Internet. Although, I certainly hope they're planning for the future. And if they are, it would still be foolish to let the cable companies know that.
  - felipemnoa 14y ago
    >>You don't really know what the CEO actually believes because saying the Internet is a fad plays directly into his market (the cable companies). I'm willing to bet that he actually believes this.
    - gibybo 14y ago
      I just can't imagine how he could. I can understand him saying this because it makes a lot of business sense considering the company's position, but someone so involved in content delivery cannot possibly believe internet delivery is just a fad. They invested in HBO Go ahead of many of their rivals, so it seems like they actually understand the future, they are just afraid to talk about it now because the rest of the world isn't ready.
  - pwthornton 14y ago
    As long as HBO remains owned by a cable company, I expect them to hold onto their current practices long after it makes economic sense.
    - gte910h 14y ago
zitterbewegung 14y ago
Hrm, game of thrones also is one of the most highly rated shows on Cable. http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-17/news/31357061_1_thrones-nielsen-ratings-data-viewers http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-17/news/31357061_1_t... .
- hack_edu 14y ago
  ... because they have drastically limited its availability for direct downloads and pursue pirates like the coming winter.
  - gte910h 14y ago
    Or perhaps it's a really good show? Its on tons of "watch for free" sites
pwthornton 14y ago
HBO is owned by Time Warner. That's why they say these crazy things and make their content so hard for people to view. Time Warner wants to protect their cable business at all costs. If HBO were independent you wouldn't see these stupid comments. It's in HBO's best interests to get their content seen by as many people as possible. That, however, is not in the best interest of Time Warner. HBO Go is largely a joke. Not only does it require a cable subscription, it can't be used on the go. There is no offline caching of shows and to stream shows it requires a pretty strong connection: http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go-not-a-to-go-service/ http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go-not-a...
- msg 14y ago
  When we were subscribing I was able to use HBO Go fine on 4G (TMobile, Seattle area). My bugaboo in this area is international football. Getting Premier League games in the states is a real pain. I'm sure there's equally entrenched interests there.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    F1 in the UK is split between BBC (free[1] terrestrial) and Sky Sports (non free, satellite). You can't just buy the sports, you have to buy a bunch of other stuff to get the sports. It's very annoying. [1] You need a tv licence if you use a TV as a TV, even if you never make use of BBC content.
  - pwthornton 14y ago
    To clarify, the issue isn't so much that it won't work at all, it's that you won't get good vide quality over a slower connection. For instance, I'm traveling for a week, and will have hotel wifi. Game of Thrones will look pixelated on my third-gen iPad. That's not exactly the kind of experience I'm looking for. In contrast, I purchased the latest episode of Sherlock in 1080p for this trip. It looks amazing on the iPad, and I'll be able to watch it on the plane or anywhere else. If this thread is still active, I'll report back tonight on how HBO Go works on my hotel's wifi. If HBO Go would just let me cache a few shows this wouldn't be an issue. And forget about watching any of these episodes on my plane flight. Maybe I'm asking too much from an app with Go in the name.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
felipemnoa 14y ago
>>an internet-based model [for TV] is just a fad You cannot help but laugh at such a comment. This is anecdotal evidence but increasingly I've noticed people connecting their flat screen TV to their computer and use that as their main source of media. And these are people that are not technical in the least.
DiabloD3 14y ago
I wish there was a way I could tell the CEO of HBO that I'm paying $16 to Netflix every month for two streaming accounts and I canceled cable.
rglover 14y ago
This would be so easy to fix if the network heads weren't so ignorant: Make a Netflix style distribution system, allow users to subscribe a la carte to a fixed number of channels on a tiered system (i.e. I can select up to 15 channels for $29.99 a month or 30 channels for $59.99 a month), and make it all on demand. The infrastructure is there, the tech wouldn't be that hard to set up, and it would make a BOATLOAD of money for both the networks and the operators. Honestly, it sounds like an ego game. They don't understand how these things work so they go on the defensive as opposed to learning and improving their business. Sad.
- ajross 14y ago
  I suspect it's more complicated than that. Netflix is $15 a month, cable subscribers routinely pay $100 or more. And I'd bet that HBO and its properties get a reasonably-sized chunk of that. That "BOATLOAD" has a lot of scaling to do.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
    - Skywing 14y ago
      Here in the Texas area, Verizon's FiOS service is easily $80-100 a month. That's for the base internet + tv package, with no special channels, too. That does not include HBO, or any other movie channel. At one house that I lived at for a year or so, we paid $180 a month for TV + internet, no phone line. That was simply because we wanted HBO and some sports channels, and good internet, with like two extra DVR boxes. I consider $100 on TV + internet to be pretty average, if not lower average. Edit: deleted message said something about $100 being way more than he had seen for TV and internet bundles.
  - rglover 14y ago
    The complication is in the hands of the MSO (e.g. Time Warner, Comcast, Cox). That $100 isn't for the content license, it's for the exclusivity contracts in your area. Ever notice how there's only one or two options for a provider in your area? That's because companies like Time Warner physically purchase the rights to the actual cable lines in your area and forbid any other providers from transmitting over them. Your cable bill is for the most part ensuring this exclusivity stays in place. It's a whole lot of bs put in place by a lot of greedy people. Don't be fooled.
mattwdelong 14y ago
I am 25 years old. I have never paid for cable and I have numerous shows that I enjoy. I would GLADLY pay to watch some of my favourite shows, Game of Thrones included. However, as I currently reside in Canada, I can't even watch Hulu - Netflix Canada sucks. I have money; your show is not attainable through monetary means and I will not purchase cable. What is a fella to do? You do not like the answer.
- reginaldo 14y ago
  Rent a cheap VPS with a provider in the US and install openvpn on it. You can actually get one of those for 5 USD/month. Find them here: http://www.lowendbox.com/ http://www.lowendbox.com/.
  - mattwdelong 14y ago
    Actually, I own a server in the US and have the means to set up a VPS. The point I am trying to make is that I shouldn't have to take 10 steps to watch my favourite shows. It should be a two step process. Pay -> Watch. Easy.
    - reginaldo 14y ago
      Oh yes. I agree. And I have suffered to set up an american PayPal account just so I could pay for media services which restrict access based on where your PayPal account is (IMHO, they should not even be able to get this information, but I digress). Then PayPal found out and basically blocked my account, along with the little amount of funds it had. It is just crazy how many conditions they impose instead of just taking my money, then complain when people who are less patient than me just go ahead and pirate the damn thing.
    - ahelwer 14y ago
      If you want it to be that easy, iTunes works well (I live in Canada). Purchasing a single tv show or movie is the same price as a few months of Netflix, though.
    - zanny 14y ago
mpat 14y ago
Cable television requires a subscription with a cable company, telecom, or DTH satellite operator. Broadband internet requires a subscription with a cable company, telecom, or DTH satellite operator. An "internet-based model" has no impact on the supply chain. Cable companies, telecoms, and DTH satellite providers still sit between the content providers and the consumer.
UK-AL 14y ago
Of course he would say that. The traditional industry is trying to stop legit Internet viewing. Netflix or some other company needs to become strong and break them.
tylermenezes 14y ago
The astounding thing to me is that I think these companies actually believe this.If I hadn't met people like this, I wouldn't believe that you can live in such a total circlejerk of like-minded people that you can actually make statements like this and mean them. Mayyyybe the people at the top actually have some sense of what's going on and are just being strategic. But I wouldn't doubt for a minute that they actually don't.
dataisfun 14y ago
This is all I have to say: http://www.rinkworks.com/said/predictions.shtml http://www.rinkworks.com/said/predictions.shtml
dataisfun 14y ago
This is all I have to say (full version): I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949 "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957. "But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip. "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981, but believed to be an urban legend. "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876. "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s. "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility." -- Lee DeForest, inventor. "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927. "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind." "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. "Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899. "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer. "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads. "It will be years -- not in my time -- before a woman will become Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1974.
littletables 14y ago
The response I got on this article today was, "I've talked to HBO execs at NAB and IBC. They're simultaneously clueless and shackled to Time Warner." How do you solve that?
fleitz 14y ago
In the game of piracy you seed or you die.
badclient 14y ago
Is there an upside to making a statement like this for a guy in his position? I am trying to think because the potential downside(becoming the laughing stock) in future seems huge.
alantrrs 14y ago
Oh the establishment. They don't want to go out of their same ways of doing business and evolve like the rest of the people.
JeremyBanks 14y ago
HN headline is wrong. The quote is from co-president Eric Kessler, not CEO Bill Nelson. The CEO isn't even mentioned in this article.
kamaal 14y ago
I think certain MBA types totally fail to predict disruptive business trends and that's because they never understand full implications of any thing. This is a problem with anybody who looks things only from a abstract sense. Like many have mentioned in this thread, People said similar things about computers in the past. This is why its so important to understand what you are dealing with, every aspect of your business sometime you need to get down to the grass root levels to understand. Merely 'I can get this job done by hiring techies' doesn't always help all the time.
antidoh 14y ago
An OTA broadcast-based model [for TV] was a bit stronger than a fad. What was it that made it old-fashioned and bereft of really interesting content? Oh yeah, HBO and its ilk. It always amazes me when dictators who succeed via coup d'état think they'll live forever.
contextfree 14y ago
Not necessarily defending this guy (who I know nothing about) or anything, but I really hate it when somebody's paraphrase is put in quotation marks as if it's a direct quote. "HBO co-president Eric Kessler has said he thinks the move away from traditional television to an internet-based model is just a fad that will pass – a 'temporary phenomenon' tied to the down economy. " The only actual quote here is 'temporary phenomenon', which could have all kinds of contexts.
robomartin 14y ago
Someone should make a website with famous declarations by high-ups in various industries. It'd be a neat historical reference. For example: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer at home" (Ken Olsen, Digital Equipment Corporation).
masklinn 14y ago
> Now, it’s important to note the reason for all this piracy: lack of access to the show for people who can’t afford, or choose not to purchase, a cable-TV subscription. Which, for the purpose of watching Game of Thrones, includes everybody who does not live in the US (and the UK for Game of Thrones, since it broadcasts on Sky the day after). That's roughly 6.6 billion people "without cable access" for the purpose of watching GoT, even taking a third of that to account for people who have high-speed internet access and understand spoken english reasonably well you're still talking about a good 2 billion people who can see the series's hype online and have no way to watch the show legally while it is hyped and they can discuss it with other fans.
tluyben2 14y ago
As the article says and as a lot of people including me keep repeating: I would pay practically ANY amount for movies & shows I want to see. I live in the EU and you have to struggle to see shows like Game of Thrones legally (basically, fly to the US or wait forever). That's not an option. Worldwide (!) distribution at the same time (!) for an amount they make a profit on would be fine with me and I know many others. It's not about money; it's about that the world has changed; people have instant worldwide communication (via Facebook for instance) about the unfolding of, for instance, this series, yet the viewing is not worldwide. In the olden days, you didn't know about your friends in the US and what they watched, so you didn't mind waiting a year for a series to get on local tv. Hell, you probably didn't even know the series existed until it aired. As long as this is not changed, people will keep downloading as there is no alternative.
- tluyben2 14y ago
  Oh, and why is there no feedback forum/something for these companies. In open discussion they could see what their real audience wants instead of staring at the falling numbers and drawing conclusions from suspected causalities!?
aspensmonster 14y ago
...and guitar music is on the way out.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
pwthornton 14y ago
This is unrelated, but this reminds me of when my wife worked at a newspaper and her boss said that "The Internet is just a fad." That thinking has worked out real well for newspapers.
justncase80 14y ago
It seems monopolistic and anti-competitive for a content distribution company to also own a content creation company. The government should get in there and break that shit up. I think HBO would find it quite lucrative to be able to directly sell their content to their customers. When you find yourself in a situation where it's easier to download a show off of bittorrent illegally than it is to get it legitimately from the content creator directly, something is messed up.

93 points by mschen 14y ago

guelo 14y ago

HBO does not need your money, they do really well selling their subscriptions. HBO's business is based on charging $200/year to subscribers in exchange for exclusive content. By offering a la carte shows at $9.99 or whatever they would be breaking the exclusivity that they sell to their real customers. The pirates' argument seems to be that HBO does not have the right to produce exclusive content for their subscribers, as if access to all entertainment is some fundamental right, it is not.

krakensden 14y ago
Those are all good points, but it does seem silly that they refuse to sell subscriptions to the uncabled youths for $250 a year.
- untog 14y ago
  The cable companies would be extremely unhappy about that, and may drop them.
kbolino 14y ago
Here's a hint: paying $9.99 (or $0.99 or $0.01, if that's the price that's set) makes you a real customer. The definition of customer is "someone who exchanged his money for your goods/services"; it does not matter the quantity. All money is equally green. Exclusivity is another name for rent-seeking. HBO has every right to publish (and not publish) its content in the manner of its choosing, but I don't have to like it. I bought the Game of Thrones books instead; which I was able to do, at physical and virtual locations, individually or in a boxed set, at a fair and reasonable price, at my leisure. Oh, and I can resell them after I've finished reading them. Funny, that.

sp332 14y ago

You have to realize, HBO's customers are not the subscribers. HBO's customers are cable companies. The cable companies deal with the subscribers and just keep track of how much to pay HBO every month. HBO doesn't even know who the subscribers are! They don't have any identification or billing information. That's why they can't sell to customers directly.

wmf 14y ago
Don't you think there are Internet distributors who would be happy to collect money for HBO? All they would have to do is allow it.
CamperBob2 14y ago
They don't have any identification or billing information. That's why they can't sell to customers directly. (Shrug) All they have to do is ask. It's as if they don't want to be able to sell directly to their viewers. Other publishing industries are frantic at the thought of middlemen like Apple and Amazon owning subscriber relationships. Yet HBO and Showtime seem to actively prefer it that way. I don't get it... don't they understand the risks of putting all of their eggs in the cable provider's basket?
- sp332 14y ago
  They have no customer support desks, no personally identifiable information, no monstrous billing system. Turning from a B2B company to a B2C company is not as easy as flipping a switch!
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    Still doesn't explain why other publishers want to be able to do this stuff while TV studios do not.

dm8 14y ago

It wasn't a while ago someone from DEC made bone headed prediction - "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." I don't understand why media companies don't get it that future is Internet. iTunes and Netflix are shining examples of that. What more evidence do they want? Edit: Added Netflix reference

DiabloD3 14y ago
I thought that was IBM, not DEC?
- CrownStem 14y ago
  That was said by Ken Olsen, CEO of DEC, in 1977- At a meeting of the World Future Society, of all places. Granted, he later said that he was referring to large computers common at that time.
  - Fuzzwah 14y ago
    My little bit of snopes'ing pulled up an interesting ass covering that Olsen made in reference to this quote, which as time goes on still sounds equally as bad: > I did make a number of statements and still make statements that people don't understand about computers, or delight in misquoting. A long time ago when the common knowledge was that PCs would run our lives in every detail, I said that if you stole something from the refrigerator at night you didn't want to enter this into the computer so that it would . . . mess up the computer plans for coming meals.
- Fuzzwah 14y ago
  Snopes tells me that it was Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, in 1977. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp
lesterbuck 14y ago
That was an out of context quote by Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation. In fact, Ken Olsen was a hacker, just like us, and had a computer in his house which he used for work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Olsen#Quotations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Olsen#Quotations

psykotic 14y ago

Does this remind you of someone else? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7874307/Prince-the-internets-completely-over.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7874307/Prince-th...

etfb 14y ago
"Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein."

nazgulnarsil 14y ago

"HBO Go requires a cable subscription" If I was an HBO shareholder I'd laugh while I sold.

wvenable 14y ago
HBO is bound by all kinds of license agreements to the cable providers and that is their bread and butter. They simply cannot provide Internet purchasing of their content. You don't really know what the CEO actually believes because saying the Internet is a fad plays directly into his market (the cable companies). At this point in time, it might make more economic sense for HBO to ignore the Internet. Although, I certainly hope they're planning for the future. And if they are, it would still be foolish to let the cable companies know that.
- felipemnoa 14y ago
  >>You don't really know what the CEO actually believes because saying the Internet is a fad plays directly into his market (the cable companies). I'm willing to bet that he actually believes this.
  - gibybo 14y ago
    I just can't imagine how he could. I can understand him saying this because it makes a lot of business sense considering the company's position, but someone so involved in content delivery cannot possibly believe internet delivery is just a fad. They invested in HBO Go ahead of many of their rivals, so it seems like they actually understand the future, they are just afraid to talk about it now because the rest of the world isn't ready.
- pwthornton 14y ago
  As long as HBO remains owned by a cable company, I expect them to hold onto their current practices long after it makes economic sense.
  - gte910h 14y ago

zitterbewegung 14y ago

Hrm, game of thrones also is one of the most highly rated shows on Cable. http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-17/news/31357061_1_thrones-nielsen-ratings-data-viewers http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-17/news/31357061_1_t... .

hack_edu 14y ago
... because they have drastically limited its availability for direct downloads and pursue pirates like the coming winter.
- gte910h 14y ago
  Or perhaps it's a really good show? Its on tons of "watch for free" sites

pwthornton 14y ago

HBO is owned by Time Warner. That's why they say these crazy things and make their content so hard for people to view. Time Warner wants to protect their cable business at all costs. If HBO were independent you wouldn't see these stupid comments. It's in HBO's best interests to get their content seen by as many people as possible. That, however, is not in the best interest of Time Warner. HBO Go is largely a joke. Not only does it require a cable subscription, it can't be used on the go. There is no offline caching of shows and to stream shows it requires a pretty strong connection: http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go-not-a-to-go-service/ http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go-not-a...

msg 14y ago
When we were subscribing I was able to use HBO Go fine on 4G (TMobile, Seattle area). My bugaboo in this area is international football. Getting Premier League games in the states is a real pain. I'm sure there's equally entrenched interests there.
- DanBC 14y ago
  F1 in the UK is split between BBC (free[1] terrestrial) and Sky Sports (non free, satellite). You can't just buy the sports, you have to buy a bunch of other stuff to get the sports. It's very annoying. [1] You need a tv licence if you use a TV as a TV, even if you never make use of BBC content.
- pwthornton 14y ago
  To clarify, the issue isn't so much that it won't work at all, it's that you won't get good vide quality over a slower connection. For instance, I'm traveling for a week, and will have hotel wifi. Game of Thrones will look pixelated on my third-gen iPad. That's not exactly the kind of experience I'm looking for. In contrast, I purchased the latest episode of Sherlock in 1080p for this trip. It looks amazing on the iPad, and I'll be able to watch it on the plane or anywhere else. If this thread is still active, I'll report back tonight on how HBO Go works on my hotel's wifi. If HBO Go would just let me cache a few shows this wouldn't be an issue. And forget about watching any of these episodes on my plane flight. Maybe I'm asking too much from an app with Go in the name.

deleted 14y ago

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felipemnoa 14y ago

>>an internet-based model [for TV] is just a fad You cannot help but laugh at such a comment. This is anecdotal evidence but increasingly I've noticed people connecting their flat screen TV to their computer and use that as their main source of media. And these are people that are not technical in the least.

DiabloD3 14y ago

I wish there was a way I could tell the CEO of HBO that I'm paying $16 to Netflix every month for two streaming accounts and I canceled cable.

rglover 14y ago

This would be so easy to fix if the network heads weren't so ignorant: Make a Netflix style distribution system, allow users to subscribe a la carte to a fixed number of channels on a tiered system (i.e. I can select up to 15 channels for $29.99 a month or 30 channels for $59.99 a month), and make it all on demand. The infrastructure is there, the tech wouldn't be that hard to set up, and it would make a BOATLOAD of money for both the networks and the operators. Honestly, it sounds like an ego game. They don't understand how these things work so they go on the defensive as opposed to learning and improving their business. Sad.

ajross 14y ago
I suspect it's more complicated than that. Netflix is $15 a month, cable subscribers routinely pay $100 or more. And I'd bet that HBO and its properties get a reasonably-sized chunk of that. That "BOATLOAD" has a lot of scaling to do.
- deleted 14y ago
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  - Skywing 14y ago
    Here in the Texas area, Verizon's FiOS service is easily $80-100 a month. That's for the base internet + tv package, with no special channels, too. That does not include HBO, or any other movie channel. At one house that I lived at for a year or so, we paid $180 a month for TV + internet, no phone line. That was simply because we wanted HBO and some sports channels, and good internet, with like two extra DVR boxes. I consider $100 on TV + internet to be pretty average, if not lower average. Edit: deleted message said something about $100 being way more than he had seen for TV and internet bundles.
- rglover 14y ago
  The complication is in the hands of the MSO (e.g. Time Warner, Comcast, Cox). That $100 isn't for the content license, it's for the exclusivity contracts in your area. Ever notice how there's only one or two options for a provider in your area? That's because companies like Time Warner physically purchase the rights to the actual cable lines in your area and forbid any other providers from transmitting over them. Your cable bill is for the most part ensuring this exclusivity stays in place. It's a whole lot of bs put in place by a lot of greedy people. Don't be fooled.

mattwdelong 14y ago

I am 25 years old. I have never paid for cable and I have numerous shows that I enjoy. I would GLADLY pay to watch some of my favourite shows, Game of Thrones included. However, as I currently reside in Canada, I can't even watch Hulu - Netflix Canada sucks. I have money; your show is not attainable through monetary means and I will not purchase cable. What is a fella to do? You do not like the answer.

reginaldo 14y ago
Rent a cheap VPS with a provider in the US and install openvpn on it. You can actually get one of those for 5 USD/month. Find them here: http://www.lowendbox.com/ http://www.lowendbox.com/.
- mattwdelong 14y ago
  Actually, I own a server in the US and have the means to set up a VPS. The point I am trying to make is that I shouldn't have to take 10 steps to watch my favourite shows. It should be a two step process. Pay -> Watch. Easy.
  - reginaldo 14y ago
    Oh yes. I agree. And I have suffered to set up an american PayPal account just so I could pay for media services which restrict access based on where your PayPal account is (IMHO, they should not even be able to get this information, but I digress). Then PayPal found out and basically blocked my account, along with the little amount of funds it had. It is just crazy how many conditions they impose instead of just taking my money, then complain when people who are less patient than me just go ahead and pirate the damn thing.
  - ahelwer 14y ago
    If you want it to be that easy, iTunes works well (I live in Canada). Purchasing a single tv show or movie is the same price as a few months of Netflix, though.
  - zanny 14y ago

mpat 14y ago

Cable television requires a subscription with a cable company, telecom, or DTH satellite operator. Broadband internet requires a subscription with a cable company, telecom, or DTH satellite operator. An "internet-based model" has no impact on the supply chain. Cable companies, telecoms, and DTH satellite providers still sit between the content providers and the consumer.

UK-AL 14y ago

Of course he would say that. The traditional industry is trying to stop legit Internet viewing. Netflix or some other company needs to become strong and break them.

tylermenezes 14y ago

The astounding thing to me is that I think these companies actually believe this.If I hadn't met people like this, I wouldn't believe that you can live in such a total circlejerk of like-minded people that you can actually make statements like this and mean them. Mayyyybe the people at the top actually have some sense of what's going on and are just being strategic. But I wouldn't doubt for a minute that they actually don't.

dataisfun 14y ago

This is all I have to say: http://www.rinkworks.com/said/predictions.shtml http://www.rinkworks.com/said/predictions.shtml

dataisfun 14y ago

This is all I have to say (full version): I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949 "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957. "But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip. "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981, but believed to be an urban legend. "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876. "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s. "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility." -- Lee DeForest, inventor. "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927. "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind." "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. "Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899. "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer. "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads. "It will be years -- not in my time -- before a woman will become Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1974.

littletables 14y ago

The response I got on this article today was, "I've talked to HBO execs at NAB and IBC. They're simultaneously clueless and shackled to Time Warner." How do you solve that?

fleitz 14y ago

In the game of piracy you seed or you die.

badclient 14y ago

Is there an upside to making a statement like this for a guy in his position? I am trying to think because the potential downside(becoming the laughing stock) in future seems huge.

alantrrs 14y ago

Oh the establishment. They don't want to go out of their same ways of doing business and evolve like the rest of the people.

JeremyBanks 14y ago

HN headline is wrong. The quote is from co-president Eric Kessler, not CEO Bill Nelson. The CEO isn't even mentioned in this article.

kamaal 14y ago

I think certain MBA types totally fail to predict disruptive business trends and that's because they never understand full implications of any thing. This is a problem with anybody who looks things only from a abstract sense. Like many have mentioned in this thread, People said similar things about computers in the past. This is why its so important to understand what you are dealing with, every aspect of your business sometime you need to get down to the grass root levels to understand. Merely 'I can get this job done by hiring techies' doesn't always help all the time.

antidoh 14y ago

An OTA broadcast-based model [for TV] was a bit stronger than a fad. What was it that made it old-fashioned and bereft of really interesting content? Oh yeah, HBO and its ilk. It always amazes me when dictators who succeed via coup d'état think they'll live forever.

contextfree 14y ago

Not necessarily defending this guy (who I know nothing about) or anything, but I really hate it when somebody's paraphrase is put in quotation marks as if it's a direct quote. "HBO co-president Eric Kessler has said he thinks the move away from traditional television to an internet-based model is just a fad that will pass – a 'temporary phenomenon' tied to the down economy. " The only actual quote here is 'temporary phenomenon', which could have all kinds of contexts.

robomartin 14y ago

Someone should make a website with famous declarations by high-ups in various industries. It'd be a neat historical reference. For example: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer at home" (Ken Olsen, Digital Equipment Corporation).

masklinn 14y ago

> Now, it’s important to note the reason for all this piracy: lack of access to the show for people who can’t afford, or choose not to purchase, a cable-TV subscription. Which, for the purpose of watching Game of Thrones, includes everybody who does not live in the US (and the UK for Game of Thrones, since it broadcasts on Sky the day after). That's roughly 6.6 billion people "without cable access" for the purpose of watching GoT, even taking a third of that to account for people who have high-speed internet access and understand spoken english reasonably well you're still talking about a good 2 billion people who can see the series's hype online and have no way to watch the show legally while it is hyped and they can discuss it with other fans.

tluyben2 14y ago

As the article says and as a lot of people including me keep repeating: I would pay practically ANY amount for movies & shows I want to see. I live in the EU and you have to struggle to see shows like Game of Thrones legally (basically, fly to the US or wait forever). That's not an option. Worldwide (!) distribution at the same time (!) for an amount they make a profit on would be fine with me and I know many others. It's not about money; it's about that the world has changed; people have instant worldwide communication (via Facebook for instance) about the unfolding of, for instance, this series, yet the viewing is not worldwide. In the olden days, you didn't know about your friends in the US and what they watched, so you didn't mind waiting a year for a series to get on local tv. Hell, you probably didn't even know the series existed until it aired. As long as this is not changed, people will keep downloading as there is no alternative.

tluyben2 14y ago
Oh, and why is there no feedback forum/something for these companies. In open discussion they could see what their real audience wants instead of staring at the falling numbers and drawing conclusions from suspected causalities!?

aspensmonster 14y ago

...and guitar music is on the way out.

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pwthornton 14y ago

This is unrelated, but this reminds me of when my wife worked at a newspaper and her boss said that "The Internet is just a fad." That thinking has worked out real well for newspapers.

justncase80 14y ago

It seems monopolistic and anti-competitive for a content distribution company to also own a content creation company. The government should get in there and break that shit up. I think HBO would find it quite lucrative to be able to directly sell their content to their customers. When you find yourself in a situation where it's easier to download a show off of bittorrent illegally than it is to get it legitimately from the content creator directly, something is messed up.