The days of borrowing friends and families' HBO Go log-ins may soon be over. HBO's parent company Time Warner is considering to offer the service to everyone with or without a cable subscription.
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes's recent comments give the strongest indication so far that the pay-cable network may sell standalone subscriptions to its HBO Go video-streaming service. Goldman Sachs analyst Drew Borst asked Bewkes about the possibility at an investment conference, according to FactSet via Quartz.
"We're seriously considering what is the best way to deal with online distribution," Bewkes said. "But I don't have anything to announce about it today."
HBO has started to sell its channel through a smaller cable package that comes with Internet, basic TV and HBO (including HBO Go), according to The Wall Street Journal. Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse offer the "Internet plus" option.
"Up until now, it looked to us as though the best and main opportunity was to focus on improving the penetration, the offering, the servicing, the interface, the monetization of HBO through the existing affiliate system," Bewkes said.
Sony and Dish Network both have plans for an over the top (OTT) pay-TV service which requires only a broadband connection. These options would provide Internet-based live TV and video on demand services.
"The broadband opportunity is getting quite a bit bigger, and the ability of the plant to deliver something robust is getting strong," Bewkes said. "So the question you're asking is becoming more viable, more interesting."
HBO CEO Richard Plepler doesn't mind his company's subscribers sharing their HBO Go log-ins. He sees it as a "terrific marketing vehicle," he said at a BuzzFeed Brews event in January. HBO Programming President Michael Lombardo echoed his thoughts a week later.
"I probably shouldn't be saying this, but it is a compliment of sorts," Lombardo told Entertainment Weekly. "The demand is there. And it certainly didn't negatively impact the DVD sales. [Piracy is] something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network."
Plepler won't consider a customer-direct program for HBO Go until the network can determine that it would add value. In the meantime, HBO will remain attached to a cable subscription.
"Right now, that's the right model for us. Are we always thinking about optionality, of course we are always thinking about optionality...if the arithmetic changes and made sense in a different way we are not going to be caught without the ability to pivot," he told Buzzfeed.
