AT&T’s much anticipated Investor Day Oct 29 may not have wowed Wall Street as was intended, but it may have an unintended emotional effect on its distributors.

The general analyst reaction to the multi-hour Investor Day -- essentially AT&T’s coming out party for its HBO Max service -- was a resounding “meh.” Words like “underwhelming,” “unanswered questions,” and “will probably anger its existing distributors,” were in heavy use in the analyst community. That doesn’t look like much of an endorsement for the service, but I’m not sure AT&T really cares.

Investors also yawned after the Investor Day, which some believed would put AT&T on the same mountain top as its rival streamer -- The Walt Disney Co. -- which is about to launch its newest streaming product Disney+ on Nov. 12. Disney stock soared 13% the first trading day after it unveiled Disney+ in a nearly three-hour presentation at its own Burbank studios on April 11. AT&T, the day after its two-hour HBO Max unveiling, was up less than 1%. Things weren’t any better the next day -- AT&T stock closed Oct. 31 at $38.20, up 0.8%.

Granted, Disney startled the investment community in April with the low monthly price-point for Disney+ -- $6.99. MoffettNathanson media analyst Michael Nathanson wrote at the time there was “a collective gasp” in the room when pricing was revealed. 

HBO Max will debut in May, so there is still some time for AT&T to soften some of the sharp edges of the service. But at $14.99, HBO Max appears meant to replace existing offerings HBO Now and the linear HBO service and its sister website HBO Go.

Distributors, if they aren’t angry yet, probably will be soon. Back in 2015, in the days before HBO was gobbled up by the phone company, the old HBO guard was very sensitive to how it launched its first streaming product HBO Now. Then-HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler made a concerted effort to let distributors know that HBO Now was not in competition with the linear product. HBO Now was priced at the same price point for the linear service and distributors were in on the marketing and selling of the offering, which was targeted at broadband-only customers. Plepler, who left HBO in February, and his team made it clear that HBO Now wasn’t being created to compete with traditional distributors, but to expand the products they could offer customers who had cut the video cord.

Now the reality may have been different -- HBO Now, which some distributors believe has cannibalized the linear product, has about 5 million customers, all of which are expected to be converted to HBO Max. But back then there was at least an effort made on behalf of the programmer to try to massage some battered distributor egos. This time though, it seems like HBO and AT&T are just rubbing it in the distributor’s face.

HBO Max is priced about the same as what traditional distributors are charging for HBO -- although some smaller distributors price HBO as high as $19.99 per month. But HBO Max has a lot more original programming and a deeper library and, according to several analysts, a better interface. WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey (also COO of AT&T) said during the Investor Day that the company looks at the Max service as an “IQ Test” for existing HBO subscribers. “Why wouldn’t you want twice the content for the same price?” he asked.

But HBO Max is an IQ test for distributors too. They have to decide whether they want to sell a premium channel that compensates them less, or use that channel capacity for other, more profitable services like broadband.

Otter Media CEO Tony Goncalves explained at the Investor Day that when HBO Max launches, HBO customers can watch the entirety of the HBO service on the HBO Max app as well as that service’s additional content. The existing linear HBO channel will also still be accessible “through your DirecTV or AT&T service,” he said.

Goncalves added that HBO is in “active discussions” with distributors and that the “intent is to get these 30-million-plus customers access to HBO Max as soon as we can.”

Stankey added that the company is “optimistic that we can actually open up agreements and do something proactively. Obviously it takes two parties to agree to do that. That’s the approach we have been using up to this point.”

It seems that even HBO is a little confused by the offering, or at least wants to appear that it can have its cake and eat it too.

Goncalves called HBO Max “our workhorse,” adding it is the greatest consumer value proposition in the stable, bringing together the HBO content and service with content from HBO Max.

“But we’re fortunate to have a base of consumers today that’s north of 30 million and they are accessing the content in a certain way, and we’re not going to leave them behind,” Goncalves said. “So over time, we should see audience migrating to this incredible value proposition that we showed you today, and we’ll migrate folks over to that particular product. But in the meantime, if a customer is comfortable accessing the content through the HBO Now product or HBO Go, we are going to allow them to continue to do that.”

But for some distributors, holding on to the linear HBO service -- which can number as high as 10 separate channels -- may not be worth it. While the details are still a little murky as to the relationship between HBO legacy and HBO Max, it would seem obvious that most consumers would go for the streaming service.

And that, at least to some distributors, removes the incentive to renew their HBO deals.

“At some point you’re going to say, ‘Why am I holding this huge block of channel capacity for HBO channels, when I could be using it for faster internet speeds,’” said the distributor who asked not to be named.

In a research note entitled “Product Looks Good, But is Not a Game-Changer,” Evercore ISI media analyst Vijay Jayant wrote that AT&T’s HBO Max strategy is likely to rub distributors the wrong way.

“We expect this situation to create conflict between HBO and non-AT&T distributors, as AT&T is likely to argue that the distributors should switch to promoting HBOmax, with a much smaller revenue share, while the distributors are likely to argue that the non-max HBO

product has been devalued, and hence they should pay a smaller revenue share on that product. It’s unclear how these negotiations will shake out over time,” Jayant wrote.

Distributors have long chafed at streaming services that offered more or equal amounts of content for a lower price directly to consumers than what the MVPDs were already paying. It was at the core of at least one carriage battle for premium service Starz -- since resolved -- which was priced at $8.99/month as a standalone streaming service, but $11.95/month via traditional pay TV distributors.

At Dish Network, which dropped HBO last November, the impasse was fueled by what it said was the programmer’s demand that it pay for a guaranteed number of subscribers, regardless of how many actually sign up for service.

Dish chairman Charlie Ergen was criticized for dropping HBO at the time. Now he looks like a freaking genius.

Because unlike his distribution counterparts, Charlie is not going to have to worry about splits and marketing and mandatory minimums and the like. If his customers want HBO in any of its iterations, they are going to have to fend for themselves.

It has been a year since Dish dropped HBO -- it officially went dark on Oct. 31, 2018 -- and the impact has been fairly minimal. After an initial spike in pay TV subscriber losses that may or may not have had anything to do with the loss of HBO (Dish also dropped several regional sports networks in the time frame) -- Dish lost 334,000 subs in Q4 2018 (compared to 39,000 in the prior year) and 259,000 in Q1 2019 (compared to 94,000 in the prior year) -- the shock seems to have lifted. Dish lost 31,000 pay TV customers in Q2 (compared to 151,000 in the prior year).

Whether other distributors follow Dish’s lead will depend on when they last signed a carriage renewal with HBO. But for distributors that are looking for an excuse to drop the premium service, AT&T seems to have given it to them.

Related: Dish’s Dilemma 

Now you may ask, what does AT&T care about other distributors? They have DirecTV (or AT&T TV) or whatever they’re calling their satellite distribution service. And that is true. DirecTV has about 18 million pay TV customers, but it is bleeding subscribers like a sieve. In Q3, between DirecTV, AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now) and U-verse TV, AT&T lost 1.4 million customers. That’s huge. And though AT&T has said DirecTV’s losses have peaked, that doesn’t mean they won’t lose more.

AT&T is expected to try to migrate most of those DirecTV customers to its thin-client AT&T TV service, which also is expected to be launched next year. No pricing info for the service has been released, but it is expected to include live TV, programming from AT&T’s Turner networks and HBO Max.

AT&T also plans an ad-supported version of HBO Max for 2021, as well as live TV bundles as part of the service eventually, which could also complicate things.

“We are a lot more skeptical about these components,” Venkateshwar wrote. “Apart from brand dissonance with respect to HBO’s premium nature, these features also seem forced to make economics work in the context of the investment scale. Brand consistency is also likely to be a problem due to content on Max being skewed more towards young adults which has not really been a target for HBO given its premium price point. Also, including some of these components are likely to make discussions with legacy distributors a lot more contentious.”

In the meantime, AT&T plans to beef up the HBO Max subscriber coffers by giving it away for free to its wireless subscribers, a strategy it used for the skinny bundles AT&T Watch TV, an experiment it has since ended. 

AT&T has predicted that it will sign on 50 million HBO Max subscribers by 2025, but that includes about 34 million existing HBO customers. And in addition to making HBO Max available for free to its unlimited wireless customers, premium AT&T pay TV and 1 Gigabit per second broadband subscribers also will get the service for no extra charge. Venkateshwar estimated that would account for about 5 million subscribers within its wireless base that would be eligible. That works out to nearly 40 million subscribers, making hitting that 50 million customer goal not that much of a stretch. Disney, which signed a deal with Verizon to make Disney+ available to their wireless customers free for 12 months, expects to add 7 million to 10 million customers by the end of this year.

AT&T has been saying for more than a year that they see the future of TV in eyeballs and targeted advertising, constantly reminding anyone within earshot that they have access to about 170 million customers through all of their properties. But how they approach monetizing those eyeballs is going to be crucial. Remember when Fox bought MySpace? And how they were going to push adds and programming to that treasure trove of young online users? Remember how that worked out? (Hint: Fox bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million and sold it in 2012 for $35 million)

The key will be how AT&T uses its clout. If it decides to just carpet bomb those 170 million customers with ads and whatnot, it will be a disaster. I don’t know about you, but the second my mobile phone starts lighting up with ads that I never requested, that phone is immediately going into the river. I’m guessing that with the myriad options for wireless service and the ease at which most make it for consumers to switch, many annoyed customers would do the same.

AT&T is not doing this all without some expense either, which has some analysts scratching their heads. In his report, Venkateshwar wrote that AT&T will spend about $19 billion over the next five years to get 16 million cumulative HBO Max subscribers. While not all of that money will be spent on subscriber acquisition, Venkateshwar posits that in order for the service to work it either has to have much lower churn than its rivals or its base of subscribers has to be much higher than AT&T’s guidance. In addition, AT&T will have to drive other revenue sources -- particularly advertising, which the company has said is a goal -- and content licensing.

Streaming video churn is high, especially for services that market themselves mainly on price -- just ask AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now) which sank like a stone after it raised prices.  Free is a great way to bulk up subscriber rolls, but don’t be surprised when they bail as soon as the price gets too high. And it will. If there is a fundamental truth to the television business it is this -- programming is costly and nobody makes quality content for free.

“We also believe the vision for the product doesn’t appear to have been fully crystallized given the open questions around AT&T TV’s integration into the service, which increases the chances for a non-linear execution path,” Venkateshwar wrote. “Also, based on the guidance provided for HBO Max revenue for next year at the event ($100 million), the company does not appear to expect a significant amount of paid gross adds until 2021 and therefore much of the company’s total revenue growth guidance for next year appears to be based on acceleration in zero-margin equipment revenues.”

But maybe this is working out exactly the way AT&T wants it to work out. The consensus belief is that when AT&T bought DirecTV in 2015, it knew the satellite business was dying, but saw value in the company’s programming contracts to fuel other distribution products. DirecTV is losing subscribers by the ton, but it was all part of the chain that started with AT&T’s wireline U-Verse TV customers migrating to DirecTV and ending with their move to DirecTV Now (now AT&T TV Now). With AT&T TV Now struggling -- it has lost about 700,000 customers in the past four quarters -- the focus is on HBO Max and AT&T TV, the IP-based streaming service that will also launch next year.

And it may be wildly successful. One thing you can bank on in the TV business is that nobody gets ahead by standing still. At the same time, upsetting the distributor base that is still paying the freight for content companies via traditional carriage fees is no way to move forward either.

So, it could really go either way. And to those that are looking for signs from above, I give you this: WarnerMedia Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt walked onto the stage at the Investor Day to the tune of the theme song to former HBO series Six Feet Under, which he produced earlier in his career. Six Feet Under was an Emmy-award winning series about a severely dysfunctional family that made its living by burying the dead. Let’s hope that in the next few years, we don’t look at that entrance as an omen for what was to be. 

Amazon’s Prime Video Channels service will generate an estimated $1.7 billion in revenue in 2018, BMO Capital Markets predicts.

The tally represents more than a doubling of the $700 million BMO said that Channels wrought in 2017.

Factoring in a speculative 70% average cut Channels doles out to content partners including HBO, Showtime and CBS, just to name a few, total revenue of $1.7 billion translates to revenue of $500 million for Amazon … without producing a single show for the platform, or really doing much of anything in the way of marketing.

Related: Ad-Free CBS All Access Available Via Amazon Channels

By 2020, BMO predicts that Prime Video Channels will generate total revenue of $3.6 billion, keeping as much as $2.5 billion for itself.

"We believe [Channels] is a material driver of standalone OTT subscribers for many entertainment companies,” representing anywhere from 25%-45% of total OTT users depending on the channel,” BMO analysts Daniel Salmon and William Lowden wrote in the report." analysts Daniel Salmon and William Lowden wrote.

Amazon Prime Video Channels delivers 156 streaming video services in the U.S., handling billing and signup for its partners. The service is also available in the UK, German and Japan.

Channels is one component in a broad Amazon Prime Video offering, which also includes movie and TV show rentals and sales, as well as an SVOD services that offers popular original series including The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Amazon doesn't break out the performance of its various video businesses in its earnings report, leaving analysts and press to come up with exercises in guess-timation. 

HBO said it has struck a deal to provide complimentary access to HBO GO, the premium programmer’s authenticated streaming service, to guests staying at select Marriott properties in the U.S.

Starting this month, guests in supported hotels will be able to access HBO GO on in-room connected TVs without having to log in with user names and passwords. HBO said the app will initially be made available to more than 1,500 Marriott properties and about 575,000 rooms, and a more than 3,500 properties over the next several months.

Complementary access to HBO in hotels has been a long-time perk in the hospitality industry, while also giving HBO exposure to non-subscribers. This new offering tied to HBO GO will got a step further by also delivering on-demand streaming access to HBO-licensed movies and its mix of original series, such as Game of Thrones, Westworld and Silicon Valley.

HBO said the Marriott agreement is the first for this particular offering, but added that its distribution team is working across the lodging industry to evolve in-room entertainment experiences with digital offerings such as HBO GO.

The HBO-Marriott pact is one of several announcements being made Monday amid The Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition & Conference, taking place this week in Houston.

RELATED: Comcast Business Tailors X1 for Hospitality Market

“Travelers today expect personalized experiences right down to guest room entertainment, being able to watch their favorite shows when they want to even on the road,” Scott Hansen, senior director of guest technology for Marriott International, said in a statement. “The addition of HBO GO demonstrates our ongoing commitment in expanding entertainment options while enhancing our guests’ travel experience.”

HBO will make all four episodes of its documentary series The Defiant Ones available on the network’s digital streaming platforms beginning July 9.

The series, which will run on HBO over four consecutive nights beginning July 9, will be available on HBO Go and HBO Now as well as HBO On Demand, said network officials.

The Defiant Ones chronicles the story of the decades long musical and business partnership between Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, and will feature interviews with Bono, David Geffen, Eminem, Nas, Stevie Nicks, Kendrick Lamar, Ice Cube, Gwen Stefani, Jon Landau, Tom Petty, Trent Reznor, Snoop Dogg, Bruce Springsteen, Diddy and will.i.am.

HBO is entering the world of VR with apps for HBO Now and HBO Go that run on Daydream View, Google’s new virtual reality headset that’s compatible with certain Android-powered smartphones such as the new Pixel and Moto Z and Moto Z Force.

HBO’s apps – for its standalone OTT service and TV Everywhere offering – lets authenticated users watch original series such as Game of Thrones and Westworld on a 2D screen rendered in a 360-degree, digitally-rendered environment.

HBO’s new apps were among several new offerings that are being launched, or will be soon (Netflix, for example), for Daydream View, the $79 headset that became available last month.

RELATED: Google Daydream View Hits Stores Nov. 10

Google also teed up this new sizzle reel for Daydream View:

HBO’s scheduling decision to offer early views of the second episode of sci-fi series Westworld helped the episode draw a combined 2.7 million viewers, the network said Monday.

The pay service made the Westworld episode available Friday via HBO and HBO Now prior to last night’s linear debut, which was up against stiff competition from NBC’s Green Bay Packers-New York Giants National Football League live game telecast and multichannel coverage of the second presidential debate.

The episode drew 1.9 million viewers across two Sunday plays, and another 800,000 viewers on its streaming platforms, according to network officials. The Oct. 2 premiere episode of Westworld has thus far reached more than 6 million viewers via multiple linear plays and across multiple platforms, said the service.

HBO offered early digital plays for two freshman comedy series Divorce and Insecure. Divorce, starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church tallied 1.1 million viewers – 723,000 viewers across two Sunday linear plays as well as 250,000 combined views on HBO Go and HBO Now. The Issa Rae-starrer Insecure drew a combined 1.1 million viewers for its premiere episode generated from 601,000 digital viewers through HBO GO, HBO NOW and HBO ON Demand over a two-week run, as well as 585,000 views from two Sunday night airings, said HBO.

Dragon drama Game of Thrones averaged 25.1 million viewers across the various platforms in its just completed season six, HBO said, up nearly 5 million from the average 20.2 million that watched season five.

HBO came up with that figure when combining linear plays with those on a DVR, on demand and on HBO Go and HBO Now. The digital platforms represent almost 40% of total viewing this season, the network said.

Game of Thrones, showered with 23 Emmy nominations last week, is the most watched HBO series on record, according to the network.

“These record audiences reflect the options we have built into our business model over the last few years. Combining the convenience of HBO On Demand and HBO Go with the subscription flexibility of HBO Now, our programming is being exposed to an ever-growing audience,” said Richard Plepler, chairman and CEO, HBO.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Sunday’s season six premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones was popular with digital pirates, according to the latest findings from TorrentFreak.

TorrentFreak, a news site focused on file-sharing and privacy and copyright issues, said the premiere episode drew more 1 million downloads in half a day, with about 200,000 BitTorrent users actively sharing copies of the episode at last check.

According to those findings, pirates are improving their taste for purloined video. have shifted their focus from standard definition (480p) video to high-definition formats, including 780p and 1080p.

“A few years ago roughly 10% downloaded HD copies, which are larger in size, but today this is getting close to 50%,” the site noted in a blog post, noting that the episode drew heaviest interest from pirates in Australia (12.5%), India (9.7%), United States (8.5%) and the United Kingdom (6.9%).

Though the season six premiere was popular among that group, it was not the most-pirated TV show – that dubious distinction still belongs to the season five finale of GoT, which saw 1.5 million downloads in a span of eight hours, according to  TorrentFreak.

TorrentFreak also points out that its figures account only for BitTorrent downloads, adding that “it’s possible that other pirate sources such as streaming and direct download sites did see an increase and that HBO’s free preview to non-subs might have also had an effect on reducing piracy.

On the legitimate side of the digital video ledger, T-Mobile said it saw traffic to HBO Go and HBO Now double. Both apps also happen to support Binge On, T-Mobile’s optional mobile streaming platform that delivers video in 480p and zero-rates the traffic coming in via its partner apps/services.

Ahead of the April 24 season six premiere of Game of Thrones, Atlantic Broadband has joined a growing list of TiVo partners to launch HBO Go, the premium programmer’s TV Everywhere service, on set-top boxes.

The integration lets Atlantic Broadband access the HBO Go app and stream originals and movies via the TiVo set-top interface. HBO Go content is also integrated into TiVo’s search and OnePass systems.

Watch theGoTSeason 6 trailer.

Grande Communication and RCN added HBO Go to their respective TiVo-powered platforms earlier this year.

That followed TiVo’s recent announcement that it had begun to offer HBO Go on its  TiVo Bolt, Roamio and Premiere retail product line, and that it would also extend support for the app on select TiVo devices that are distributed by its MVPD partners. Other TiVo U.S. MVPD partners include Buckeye CableSystem, Midco, Armstrong, GCI, Suddenlink Communications (now part of Altice Group), and Mediacom Communications, among others.

Grande Communications has joined RCN among MVPDs that have extended access to the HBO Go app on set-tops/DVRs powered by TiVo.

Currently, Grande customers on the TiVo platform who are also HBO subs can access the app via the Movies & Grande VOD selection from the TiVo Central page. Per this FAQ, Grande plans to add a “channel” on the guide that will tune customers directly to the app in the next 30 to 60 days.

Grande offers services in several Texas cities, including Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Midland, Odessa, San Antonio, San Marcos and Waco.

The launches follow TiVo’s recent announcement that it had begun to offer HBO Go on its  TiVo Bolt, Roamio and Premiere retail product line, and that it would also extend support for the app on select TiVo devices that are distributed by its MVPD partners. Other TiVo U.S. MVPD partners include Buckeye CableSystem, Atlantic Broadband, Midco, Armstrong, GCI, Suddenlink Communications (now part of Altice Group), and Mediacom Communications, among others.

RCN said it’s among the first cable operators to provide access to the authenticated HBO Go app on set-tops/DVRs powered by TiVo.

RCN said it is supporting HBO’s TV Everywhere offering on TiVo boxes it has deployed to customers in Chicago; New York; Boston; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley, Pa., eliminating the need for subs to access HBO Go on other types of TV-connected devices.

RCN noted that HBO Go content is integrated into the TiVo Search and OnePass platforms.

TiVo announced this week that it has begun to offer HBO Go on its  TiVo Bolt, Roamio and Premiere retail product line, and that it would also extend support for the app on select TiVo devices that are distributed by its MVPD partners.  Other TiVo U.S. MVPD partners include Buckeye CableSystem, Atlantic Broadband, Midco, Armstrong, GCI, Grande Communications, Suddenlink Communications (now part of Altice Group), and Mediacom Communications, among others.

“Watching popular content from the HBO GO app just became a lot more convenient,” said Chris Fenger, RCN’s COO, in a statement. “Our customers can now easily enjoy all HBO GO programming from either the big screen in their living room or on mobile devices - anytime, anywhere.”

”RCN remains at the forefront of innovation in the cable TV industry, and we are very excited to partner with them to provide their users with easier access to HBO GO and our incredible line up of programming,” added Joseph Bahr, VP, worldwide digital distribution & business development for HBO.

“TiVo is proud to continue to enhance the entertainment experience for RCN customers by establishing content partnerships that further their access to top-quality programming,” said Tara Maitra, SVP, GM of content and media sales for TiVo. “By partnering with HBO to offer the HBO GO app, TiVo is enabling their operator partners to provide premium content to their customer base in a single set-top box.”

TiVo announced that it is offering HBO Go, the premium programmer’s TV Everywhere app, and the kids-focused Toon Goggles VOD service via the new TiVo Bolt as well as its Roamio and Premiere retail product line.

ZatzNotFunny reported in December that HBO Go was coming to the TiVo platform. HBO Go will be available to TiVo users who are also HBO subscribers who get pay TV service from MVPD that authenticate on that platform.

HBO Go will also be appearing on specific MSO-supplied TiVo boxes. HBO Go was referenced in TiVo’s new deal with Buckeye CableSystem. It’s not clear yet when the app will be offered to other TiVo U.S. MVPD partners, which include  GCI, RCN, Grande Communications, Suddenlink Communications and Mediacom Communications, among others.

TiVo is also extending its  SkipMode feature to its entire Roamio family starting Thursday (February 18), and expects to complete that rollout by February 26.

SkipMode, a controversial feature initially offered on TiVo’s new 4K-capable Bolt device and on  Roamio DVRs deployed in Chicago and San Francisco, lets users skip commercial breaks in recorded shows with the click of a button. Early on, that capability is being supported on about two dozen channels, including the Big 4 broadcasters, for shows (except for local content and sporting events) that run each day between 4 p.m. and midnight. SkipMode can also work on TiVo Mini boxes that are connected to a Bolt or Roamio.

HBO Latin America said it will soon launch a new a la carte version of HBO Go in the region for broadband-only subscribers.

The service, which will feature content from the HBO/Max premium channels, will initially launch in Columbia by the end of 2015, the company said.

HBO Go is currently available as a complement to the premium HBO/MAX subscription package offered through MVPDs in the region. It offers more than 2,500 titles.

The new offering for broadband-only subs will be offered in Latin America, Brazil and the Caribbean, and distribution deals and pricing on the à la carte version of HBO Go will be announced jointly with partners prior to launches in each market.

The new HBO Go platform will also feature a new UI, support multiple languages (Spanish, English or Portuguese), program audio tracks and subtitles, and a feed of the linear channel.

“We have seen changes in content consumption habits and are launching this new HBO GO platform as an à la carte service in response to those trends,” Emilio Rubio, CEO of HBO Latin America, said in a statement. “We are creating options and adding more flexibility to our model and for our distributors, giving consumers the choice to enjoy the Premium content of HBO/MAX in the manner they want.”

In the U.S., the HBO Now standalone service. launched in April, has distribution deals with Apple, Cablevision Systems and Verizon Communications, and is currently supported on several platforms, including iOS and Android mobile devices, Web browsers, the Amazon Fire TV, Roku devices, select Android TV devices, the Apple TV box, and the Google Chromecast. 

HBO Asia and StarHub of Singapore have inked a new deal that will enable StarHub to offer HBO Go to via a new standalone streaming service without requiring an underlying pay TV subscription.

That new service, called StarHub Go, will initially provide more than 300 hours of HBO and  Cinemax original series, including Game of Thrones, True Detective, Ballers, The Brink, Veep, The Knick, Strike Back, Rome and The Newsroom, to subs who take the service’s Premium Pack, which sells for SGD 19.90 (US$14.20) per month.

 To prime the pump, StarHub is offering the premium package for SGD 1.99 (US $1.42) per month for three months to customers who sign up by September 30.

The service is compatible with iOS, Android and Windows 8.1 devices and on browsers equipped with the Silverlight player.

HBO, which recently launched a standalone OTT service in the U.S. called HBO Now, expects to expand the its catalogue for StarHub Go to about 1,000 hours by the end of 2015.

The companies also announced that HBO On Demand, HBO Asia’s subscription video on demand service, will be offered at no additional cost to subscribers of all HBO channels via the StarHub Go platform. 

“There’s so much demand for HBO’s award-winning content that delivering them digitally on multiple devices for our fans to watch on their own terms has been foremost priority,” Jonathan Spink, CEO of HBO Asia, said in a statement. “Introducing HBO Asia’s standalone streaming service on StarHub Go without a traditional pay TV subscription is a natural progression for us to reach new audiences.”

“Together, StarHub and HBO have achieved many milestones over the last 22 years, from our carriage of a single HBO channel on Singapore Cable Vision (SCV)’s ultra-high frequency (UHF) band to the current stable of five channels on both cable and IPTV,” added Ms. Lee Soo Hui, head of StarHub’s Media Business Unit, StarHub. “The launch of HBO GO takes our partnership to new heights by delivering HBO’s content to viewers all across Singapore through our StarHub Go service. We are also pleased to inform our StarHub TV customers that following the enhancements made to HBO On Demand, all five HBO channels will be broadcast in high definition by the end of the month.”

As we recently witnessed with YouTube, video apps continue to iterate and advance to the point that they eventually must leave older platforms in the dust.

Add HBO Go, the premium programmer’s TV Everywhere app, to that list.

As spotted by ZatzNotFunny, HBO Go support on “classic” Roku players ended on July 14. That covers a  batch of products that were made before May 2011: the Roku HD (2000C) (pictured),  Netgear XDS (NTV270), Roku XDS (2100X), Netgear XD (NTV250), Roku XD (2050X), Roku HD (N1100), Roku SD (N1050), Roku HD-XR (N1101), (N1000).

Roku, which has shipped more than 10 million devices in the U.S., noted that the move comes after it discontinued software and channel updates on those older players on May 30, 2015.

“HBO strives to offer its customers the best possible experience on the Roku platform,” Roku explained. “Due to Roku’s discontinued support of the classic Roku players, HBO would be unable to guarantee a great video experience on these Classic Roku devices.”

HBO Go still supports the Roku 1 model and above.

To soften the blow, Roku is offering a discount (20%, according to ZatzNotFunny) to eligible consumers who are interested in getting a Roku device that’s up to snuff. Those users can find out more about that program by dropping an email to promohelp@roku.com.

Traffic for HBO Go, coupled with a tiny contribution from the new HBO Now service, saw healthy gains during Sunday night’s season five premiere of Game of Thrones, but those levels were  still a relative blip when compared to the OTT video being generated by Netflix and YouTube, according to streaming data from bandwidth management specialist Sandvine.

Taking a snapshot of the traffic mix from one fixed network (the ISP in question was not identified) in the eastern U.S. on Sunday (April 12) at 9:30 p.m. ET, Sandvine found that Netflix represented 33.5% of downstream video traffic share, followed by YouTube (15.7%), HBO Go (3.4%), Amazon Instant Video (1.9%), and HBO Now (0.7%). 

Update: Sandvine confirmed that those figures do not factor in HBO traffic originating with Sling TV, Dish Network’s new OTT pay TV service for cord-cutters. For its part, Sling TV held firm under the stress of HBO-driven traffic on Sunday night, though a subset of Sling TV subs on the Roku platform did complain of slow app load times. 

“This is one network, on one day, and Internet traffic does fluctuate, so it is important to not take these figures to be representative of North America,” Sandvine’s Dan Deeth explained in this blog post, which noted that Sandvine was able to provide its customers with a software update on Friday (April 10) that allowed them to measure HBO Now traffic in time for the GoT premiere.  

Still, this limited view of traffic showed that HBO Go, HBO’s authenticated TV Everywhere service, did see a sizable jump on Sunday. In its Global Internet Phenomena Report, released in November 2014, Sandvine found that HBO Go accounted for about 1% of downstream traffic during peak periods in the U.S.  But Sandvine also has found that HBO Go usage is typically much higher on Sunday nights versus other evenings during the week.

As for HBO Now’s comparatively small showing, Sandvine chalked that up to the fact that the service had been launched for less than a week, had limited access (offered initially via Apple and to Cablevision Systems’s Optimum Online and subs), and had to fight against typical HBO Go password sharing.

“Even with its minimal impact today. HBO NOW will be interesting to track in the coming months to see how much (and how fast it grows),” Deeth wrote. 

RELATED STORY:'Game of Thrones’ Slays 7.9 Million Viewers

Following “several months” of negotiations, Roku said it has struck an agreement that allows Comcast subs to access the authenticated HBO GO and Showtime Anytime apps via the Roku platform.

That’s according to a document Roku filed with the FCC on Monday (Dec. 15) that Re/code was first to spot. 

“Roku is pleased to inform the Commission that effective November 25, 2014, Roku and Comcast entered an agreement pursuant to which Comcast has, among other things, agreed to authenticate the HBO GO and Showtime Anytime Apps on Roku video streaming devices for Comcast’s subscribers whose subscriptions entitle them to access the content and services made available through such apps,” Jonathan Kanter, a lawyer with Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP representing Roku, wrote.

The letter, dated Monday, Dec. 15., comes amid Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (which does allow authentication on Roku) and as the FCC tries to move ahead on new network neutrality rules.

Roku’s letter did not elaborate on what “other things” are included in the agreement or reveal precisely when Comcast will allow authorized customers to access HBO GO and Showtime Anytime via the Roku platform.

That Comcast is to allow authentication on Roku isn’t a huge surprise. Speaking at a Multichannel News/B&C event in March, Matt Strauss, Comcast Cable's SVP and GM of video services, said the cable operator had begun to test authentication with “certain programmers” on the Roku platform as it looked to open up new avenues for its TV Everywhere strategy.

Authentication on Roku gives Comcast a direct line into a popular streaming platform – Roku has shipped more than 10 million devices in the U.S. so far.

Update: Strauss posted a blog item about the arrangement with Roku Tuesday morning, confirming that credentialed Comcast customers can now access HBO GO and Showtime Anytime on Roku players and integrated Roku TVs. “With the addition of these channels on Roku, we now authenticate more than 90 network apps on up to 17 different devices,” Strauss noted. “And those numbers will continue to grow as new technologies and platforms emerge.” 

Expect the Amazon Fire TV to join that list in the coming weeks. Amazon announced Monday that it now supports HBO GO on its Fire TV box, and will do the same on the Fire TV Stick by spring 2015.

A Comcast official confirmed that the MSO and Amazon are in talks, and that Comcast will have something to announce with regard to HBO GO “very soon.”

Roku joined the chorus Tuesday with a blog post of its own that also offered a list of other MVPDs that are supporting HBO GO and Showtime Anytime on its platform. 

Netflix continues to generate the most wireline traffic in North  America – and continues to do so  by a wide margin – but Amazon Instant Video is starting to make some inroads, Sandvine found in its just-released Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H 2014.  

The report, based on anonymous data tabulated from Sandvine’s 250-plus customers around the globe over the course of a month, found that Netflix gobbles up 32.39% of aggregate traffic (downstream and upstream) on North American fixed networks, about where it was the last time the bandwidth management firm issued this report about six months ago.

Also on an aggregate basis, YouTube was second (13.25%), followed by HTTP traffic (8.47%), BitTorrent (5.03%), Facebook (2.94%), SSL (secure socket layer, a protocol that nails up a secure channel), iTunes (2.55%), MPEG-Other (2.44%, which includes long tail video from a number of smaller sites), Amazon Video (2.37%) and Hulu (1.2%).

Amazon Video, Sandvine noted, has seen its share more than double in the past 18 months, establishing it as the second-leading paid OTT video service in North America, despite having no presence in Canada.

Sandvine said HBO-sourced video traffic will be worth watching next year, when the premium programmer launches a standalone OTT service that does not require subs to take a pay-TV service from an MVPD. HBO Go, the network’s TV Everywhere platform, accounts for about 1% of downstream traffic during peak periods in the region, offering a benchmark that could help to measure the level of adoption of its coming OTT service.

“With both Netflix and Amazon Instant Video gaining bandwidth share in North America during 2014, it will be fascinating to see how a standalone HBOGO streaming option will impact networks when it launches in 2015,” said Dave Caputo, president and CEO, Sandvine, in a statement.  “The dynamic streaming video market underscores how important it is that operators around the globe have the business intelligence and big data solutions in place to understand the ever-changing behavior of their subscribers.”

Sandvine also found that mean monthly usage on fixed access networks in North America was 57.4 gigabytes, a 13 GB increase from the 44.5 GB observed in its report from a year ago. Median usage, meanwhile, also jumped year-over-year – from 17.6 GB to 22.5 GB – roughly in-line with the 30% to 40% growth rate that many of Sandvine’s customers forecasted for 2014, the company said.

On the mobile side of the equation, Facebook generated the most aggregate traffic (19.43%), followed by YouTube (18.02%), HTTP (11.26%), MPEG (5.72%), SSL (4.63%), Instagram (4.27%), Netflix (4.10%), Google Cloud (4.09%), iTunes (2.96%), and Pandora (2.53%).

Among data trends seen in other parts of the world, Sandvine noted that on fixed networks in the Australasia region, where Netflix isn’t even launched yet, 2.5% of subs are accessing the service, with Netflix representing 4% of peak downstream traffic, making it a top 10 app on a usage basis.

HBO GO, the popular multiscreen TV Everywhere service, could soon show up on cable set-top boxes in Europe after the premium programmer struck up a partnership with ActiveVideo, maker of a cloud-based platform that delivers apps and services to IP- and non-IP devices.

Under a partnership announced at the IBC show in Amsterdam, HBO Europe said it plans to bring HBO GO (its content and the interface) to set-tops, both young and old, using ActiveVideo’s CloudTV StreamCast platform.

Introduced in April, the new StreamCast component for ActiveVideo’s CloudTV converts user interfaces, video and other content from Web formats to versions that can be rendered and displayed by non-IP set-tops. That conversion and bridging process covers elements such as content protection and content delivery. As designed, the system delivers an MPEG/QAM or H.264 stream packed with the content as well as the UI.

HBO Europe, which operates in 14 territories in eastern and central Europe and the Netherlands, said it intends to bring HBO GO to full footprints of existing set-top boxes, targeting existing HBO GO affiliates.

HBO and ActiveVideo didn’t announce if any affiliates have agreed to jump on board, but Liberty Global’s UPC Hungary unit is the first announced MSO to deploy the CloudTV/StreamCast combo, using it to bring YouTube, Picasa, Flickr and other Internet-based apps to non-IP boxes. Ziggo of the Netherlands and Deutsche Telekom are among other MSOs in Europe that work with ActiveVideo.

“The marriage of libraries of the very best online content and the 10-foot viewing experience of television holds tremendous potential for pay-TV - online video collaboration,” said Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo, in a statement. “Virtualizing STB functionality in the cloud is the key to creating partnerships that can drive audience reach and content expansion for the benefit of both parties.”

In the run-up to IBC, ActiveVideo also announced that it has become a licensee of the Reference Design Kit (RDK), and has boosted the scaling capabilities of its “virtual” set-top architecture by supporting off-the-shelf network servers outfitted with Intel’s new Quick Sync Video technology.

Home Box Office, the premium service first envisaged by cable pioneer Charles “Chuck” Dolan while on summer vacation aboard the Queen Elizabeth II in 1971, is doing just fine these days. The network’s hottest show, Game of Thrones, has been renewed for a fifth and sixth season and is the lead performer in a stable of original programming that includes Veep, True Detective and Girls. The fantasy series, which has now dethroned The Sopranos as the most-watched series in network history, drew so many viewers to its popular HBO GO service, it briefly crashed the system. The premium network dominated Emmy wins again last year, with 27, and just toasted its biggest year of subscriber growth — 2 million subscribers — in 17 years.

The network responsible for most cable subscriptions in the industry’s salad days unveiled a groundbreaking exclusive deal last week to provide Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service with HBO programming, giving an over-the-top option to viewers. The deal, valued at $300 million by some estimates, makes life harder for rival Netflix, while preserving HBO’s option to one day sell directly to consumers.

At the helm of all this is 55-year-old Richard Plepler, who rose from the company’s public-relations ranks to become regarded as one of the most astute and strategically agile CEOs the service has ever had.

On a sunny spring afternoon in his office just north of Bryant Park in Manhattan, he sat down with Multichannel News editor in chief Mark Robichaux to discuss why he is excited for the cable industry, the growth of multi-device viewing and what’s ahead for HBO. An edited transcript follows.

MCN: The Amazon deal seems like a big departure from your long standing position that the only way to get HBO content is to subscribe to HBO. What happened?

Richard Plepler: That’s not true. We have always tried to monetize our library. We have a long history of syndication with Sopranos at A&E, Sex and the City at TBS and Band of Brothers on History Channel. As you know, Curb Your Enthusiasm is also out in syndication. This is just a natural strategic evolution of what we have tried to do. This was strategically for us the right partner. We have a vibrant electronic sell-through business with Amazon, a vibrant hard-goods business with Amazon. It was a good strategic fit for us, and enables us added flexibility and reinvestment in our brand.

MCN: How does that affect your other relationships with other MVPDs and other OTT players?

RP: It’s a win-win. What’s going to happen is that people that have never had a chance to sample our programming will now get that chance. I think we’re going to get more HBO subscribers. This will be good for their business and good for ours. This is a terrific marketing campaign for HBO which will ultimately redound to not only our bottom line, but theirs too.

Let’s be clear — you are not getting [all of] HBO on Amazon — you are not getting our theatrical movies; you are not getting the first, second or the third [season episodes] of our programming. You are getting our classics collection, if you will. This allows a larger base of people to see what we think makes the brand unique.

MCN: There does seem to be some expectation in the market that HBO will one day sell directly to the consumer “over the top.”

RP: We are always looking at the right model for HBO and right now, this is the right model for HBO — helping our partners continue to grow, growing our brand globally as well as domestically, enabling us to amortize the cost of our programming against 130 million subscribers around the world.

What I think HBO GO will enable us to do is pivot in any direction we want to pivot in. Right now, it’s an enhanced product, we look forward to working with our partners to continue to enhance their value proposition and I think we’re in a very exciting position. And in a multilateral world where you may have all diff erent kinds of viewing, we’ll be prepared for that.

MCN: Let’s talk about Game of Thrones for a second — it’s on fire. Has it really surpassed The Sopranos?

RP: It has surpassed The Sopranos in terms of viewership. But we don’t look at it as one show surpassing another in terms of cultural impact. Game of Thrones lives in its extraordinary place in the popular culture and Sopranos lived in its extraordinary place in the popular culture.

Are we thrilled with the resonance of the show not only here, but globally? Of course we are. And the credit, and I must punctuate this, is with David Benioff and Dan Weiss. And as proud as Mike and I and the team are, the salute is to them. They have produced, directed, written, developed this, along of course with George R.R. Martin, from whose books this extraordinary series comes. And we could not be more blessed than to work with creative talent at that level. And in addition to their enormous gifts as writers and directors and producers, they happen to be mensches, which makes it a particular pleasure.

MCN: That has helped you obviously grow subscribers, and this year was a good year for subscriber growth, yes?

RP: No one show triggers subscriber growth. People used to ask us all the time in the days of Sopranos, wow, you must have a surge in subscriber growth when Sopranos is on — those were the days when we had essentially two or three shows, only two or three shows. And the answer was actually not. It’s much more systemic than that.

I think what’s exciting now — and what I saw last year in my first year as CEO, and I had the privilege of spending time with our partners — is that we are a growth engine for our distribution partners. They’re growing their business and we’re growing our business.

MCN: Will that continue?

RP: We have some research, which we have just conducted and which we’re very excited about, which shows if you look at this as a political campaign, you realize you have core people who are voting for you, 43 million HBO/Cinemax subscribers. There’s always a group of people here who either, for content or for price or because they think they have enough programming, are never going to vote for you. The question that we wanted to explore is, “Where’s the undecided vote, and why are they undecided?”

Here’s what our research shows: There are millions of undecided voters, and when you go out and tell them and remind them about the value of this product, [output from] four Hollywood movie studios, 1,000 hours of library in HBO GO, the scale of our original programming — remember, everybody talks about the series, which obviously are the jewels in the crown, but our original movies, our sports programming, our boxing franchise, our documentaries, the range and scale of our programming — when you go out and punctuate that for our potential customers, they become likely subscribers.

But there are a lot of people out there who don’t really know what our theatrical movie advantage is. They actually think Netflix has more [first-run] movies. … When you explain to that customer, to that consumer, that we actually have four Hollywood movie studios, and they’re exclusively on HBO during our window, that’s very intriguing to people.

All of the sudden you’ve turned an undecided into a persuadable. And that is a very exciting bit of information.

So, we are going to be taking this research to our partners and talking to them about how we attack that undecided voter together, because there’s gold in them there hills, for us and for them.

MCN: What kind of growth do you expect over the next few years?

RP: We grew more last year, as you know, than any time in the last 17 years.

MCN: Two million subs, was it?

RP: Yes, and we are on track to grow robustly again this year. I can’t break it out any more specifically, obviously right now, other than to tell you we’ve exceeded where we thought we were going to be at this time of the year. And again, what’s exciting to me is the performance of our distributors across the board has been terrific. We are very optimistic about the year.

And in things like Internet Plus [AT&T’s $39-per-month service offering basic U-verse TV service, HBO and 18 Mbps broadband service, introduced earlier this month], we are evolving together with our distributors to grow HBO and to grow the entire category. So Internet Plus is yet another opportunity to reach into the potential subscriber base with a product that’s cheaper and where people can see and taste the value of our programming and of the value proposition of HBO.

MCN: Let’s talk about another thing that brings people into the service, HBO GO. That’s been enormously popular — what’s next for that service?

RP: HBO GO is a beautiful product. It is one of the great value enhancers that we have ever had in the history of the brand.

We have an extraordinary team of engineers led by [executive vice president of technology and CTO] Otto Berkes. The metaphor which I’ve used before is, if you look at us as a 340 BMW, we’re building a 750 IL BMW. It is going to be better and better all the time. I suggest to you that the product that you will see in a year or so will be materially different from the product that you currently see now.

MCN: So there was trouble in the HBO GO realm a few weeks ago — your system crashed briefly. What happened there?

RP: Our team has worked ferociously to improve that capacity and I think you noticed this weekend that we had no problems. It’s not to say that it’s a panacea, it’s just to say we’re improving it all the time, it’s becoming more resilient all the time and its capacity is improving all the time.

MCN: Web video in the U.S. is around 182 million users, and 283 million people watch TV. There’s skepticism about how big online viewing or device viewing really will be. So how big is this market?

RP: Here’s the exciting thing for us. We are building ultimate optionality for our customer. And if you just take a show like Thrones or take a show like True Detective, you probably have 85% or so, maybe 90% of viewing, either on demand or at different periods during the week. And you have probably about 10%, maybe even lower, viewing on [HBO] GO.

But say that that grows to 15% as the millennials watch more and more product on different devices. That optionality will be available for our subscriber. For us, what’s important is not how the universe changes but that we are there in whatever capacity it changes to to make it easier for our customer to watch HBO however they want to watch it.

So my kid, who’s 10 years old, is device-agnostic. She’ll watch The Voice on television, she’ll watch Dance Moms on her iPad and she’ll watch YouTube videos on her iPhone. Whatever the ecosystem evolves to, we will be there for our consumer.

MCN: Do you think there’s a natural plateau to the usage of these devices?

RP: My subjective sense is it’s going to come down to demographics, to generational habits. I think millennials will watch more and more shows on devices — but [Generation Xers] and [baby boomers], I think will continue to watch shows, are fully appreciated, on larger screens.

If somebody wants to catch up on John Oliver’s show [Last Week Tonight, which debuted April 27], or if somebody wants to catch up on a True Detective episode that they missed on their iPad, that will be available to them. The key for us is to offer that optionality.

Because you know what? No one knows exactly how this is going to evolve. And anybody who predicts that they do have certainty on whether the broadband only universe will go from 9.5 million to 15 million I think is stretching the truth.

MCN: Let’s talk about international, which is estimated to be about 25% of your business. Discovery is probably the only other programmer that’s really made inroads overseas while defraying the cost of some of the more expensive specials. How much success have you had overseas?

RP: We are in 70 countries around the world, we license into another 150. We have a “Home of HBO” in all the major Western European markets and in Australia and Canada.

A very exciting dimension to international, which is an output deal [in the U.K.] where they take all the HBO programming, they wrap it around what’s called Sky Atlantic, and they call it “Home of HBO.” Where we don’t have networks, it’s a terrific way to expand our brand around the world and we’re always looking for other appropriate markets to do that.

We see double-digit growth going forward. What’s very exciting to us is cable penetration continues to expand in Latin America, which is the biggest piece of our business; in Asia, where I was two weeks ago with our partners in Singapore; and in Central Europe.

In Brazil, which is our biggest market in Latin America, which is continuing to grow robustly, you have about 26%. Imagine, just extrapolate the potential of growing that by 10%.

When you talk to our cable partners and our satellite partners around the world, they see huge opportunity.

MCN: And what are audiences overseas watching?

RP: They’re watching a lot of our original programming, but their also watching movies. Movies are very big all over the world, particularly in Asia. When I travel and I sit with reporters from all over the world, the sophistication of their questions, not just about HBO programming but about the artists and auteurs who make that programming, is as sophisticated as when I’m sitting at the TCA in Los Angeles talking to American journalists.

MCN: More sophisticated than this?

RP: [Laughter.] Nothing, Mark, would be more sophisticated than this. But the extent to which the brand travels and resonates is quite extraordinary. And I think if you talk to our actors who are going around the world to promote the premieres on those networks they’ll tell you the same thing.

And because we own our stuff, we have the ability to leverage it all over the world. That’s great for business; it enables us to take our international profits, reinvest them in the brand, reinvest them in content, reinvest them in marketing and help continue to grow our business.

MCN: Let’s talk about the pay-per-view business, the boxing. You recently hosted a [Manny] Pacquiao fi ght. You’ve got a little more competition from Showtime these days. Is boxing a big part of your plans here?

RP: Absolutely. Boxing continues to be a vibrant part not only of the HBO Sports brand but of the HBO brand writ large. We had 21 of the top 25 [World Championship Boxing] fights last year. Our Boxing After Dark performed extraordinarily well, our ratings are at least two times our nearest competitor on both WCB and Boxing After Dark.

Manny continues, as will [Miguel] Cotto and others, to elevate the sport, continue to be exciting. And I think Manny’s one of the few people who can really continue to drive pay-per-view numbers to the levels we’ve been accustomed to.

MCN: What’s the status of your movie contracts these days?

RP: We have Warner Brothers, Fox and Universal. Fox and Universal are extended out into the next decade. And Summit we also have for the next few years.

What’s often obscured because of the amount of attention, rightfully, that our extraordinary programming receives in the popular culture, is the role of movies. Movies remain 78% of viewing on premium television. And 40% of our subscribers only watch movies.

And so while [original programming] is obviously the halo on our brand, movies are a seminal part of the customer experience and as you know we not only have those studios well into the next decade but we have the rights to move that product off linear and onto our digital platforms, which is huge.

MCN: I want to jump back just a second when we were talking about HBO GO and the popularity of the original programming. Do you worry about theft?

RP: I would differentiate the issues of password sharing from piracy. So let’s take them one at a time. Password-sharing is not as extensive a problem as some of the public narrative would suggest. It just isn’t. If it became one, our engineers as we speak are working on various alternatives to that and we would address it immediately.

Piracy we take very seriously. And while there’s not that much you can do on peer-to-peer sharing, it’s an issue we’re watching very closely. One of the proactive measures that we’ve taken has been to shrink the windows for our international viewing because most of the piracy is international. It’s an issue, we’re looking at it all the time. Our guys are taking down the sites as they see them. The good news is that while the noted statistic of Game of Thrones being pirated 1 million times picked up all the news, it’s important not to let that news subsume the lead, which is [that] somewhere around 15 million people are watching Game of Thrones legally in the United States and many millions more around the world.

MCN: As we head into the Cable Show, how would you rate the health of the industry?

RP: [Comcast Cable president] Neil Smit had a great quote, I thought, in an interview you did with him a number of months ago, where he said he thinks about two things — price and adding value. One of the exciting dimensions of HBO is I think we do add a lot of value for a very fair price. And I think one of the reasons that Comcast, as an example, continues to sell a lot of HBO, is we are one of the best vehicles to add value to the video package that they have.

The proof is in the pudding — that’s why we grew as much as we grew last year. Even though they were not all revenuegenerating, it shows you the health of the brand, it shows you the health of the category. Because they’re paying subs, you know?

MCN: What’s up next on the network?

RP: We have Normal Heart coming: Ryan Murphy directed a movie based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play starring Julia Roberts and Mark Ruffalo about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and the apathy of the American body politic, indeed of America itself, about the crisis.

There’s show called The Brink starring Jack Black and Tim Robbins. Robbins plays the Secretary of State and Jack plays a punitive foreign-service officer in Afghanistan. I call it M*A*S*H in Afghanistan. And Jay Roach directed the pilot. Great fun, great satire, Jerry Weintraub is producing, very excited about it.

There’s Baller, starring The Rock, about aging athletes as they make their way into their new life, set in Miami Beach. Smart, fun, quite poignant actually.

Leftovers, created by Damon Lindelof, is about a group of people who survive a Rapture-like event — it’s not the Rapture, but 2% of the world’s people disappear on one particular day and Justin Theroux plays the lead, he plays the lawenforcement officer in the town. It’s one of the most compelling pilots that any of us have ever seen here.

Westworld is coming, also produced by Jerry Weintraub and J.J. Abrams. [Last Week Tonight with] John Oliver is coming next week, more immediately, could not be more excited about having John [a former correspondent for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart] in the house. I think that that show is going to make a lot of exciting noise not only for HBO, but in the popular culture.

We’re over the moon about it. We have more original programming on the network now than any time in our history. Three out of five of the top shows in our history. True Detective, the No. 1-rated fi rst-season show in our history.

I have to credit our extraordinary programming team lead by Mike Lombardo, the range of work that we’re doing, the line of talent at our door to do more, in my 21 years here, nothing has approached this.

Olive Kitteridge, Jane Anderson directing a miniseries starring Frances McDormand, I think, will be an incredibly elegant piece of material which we have very, very high expectations for.

On Cinemax, Steven Soderbergh has brought us The NIC, about a New York hospital set in 1900 starring Clive Owen. It is absolutely riveting to have somebody of Clive and Steven’s standing say to us we want to do this for Cinemax — I think that speaks to the evolution of the brand as obviously something more than just movies. And Banshee, which did over 2.7 million viewers, really has built a following, and I think NIC will only build on what Banshee, Hunted and Strike Back.

Cinemax continues to be a fantastic flanker brand and enhances the value proposition of the full subscription.

We’re really hitting on all cylinders and our job when we wake up every day is to continue to elevate, continue to improve, continue to evolve HBO.

Amazon Primed for HBO Subs

In a single deal, Amazon and HBO’s exclusive distribution deal last week changed the over-the-top syndication landscape.

HBO’s decision to offer a portion of its vast and popular original series lineup — including The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and The Wire — to Amazon Prime Instant Video, as part of a multiyear deal with the OTT provider, raises the ante for Amazon video rivals Netflix and Hulu.

Until now, shows such as Six Feet Under could only be seen on HBO’s premium channels, as well as its subscriber-authenticated digital service HBO GO. But the deal, estimated to be worth $200 to $400 million, according to a Bernstein Research analysis, gives the online retailer exclusive content that it hopes will boost subscriptions to its $99-peryear Amazon Prime service.

It could also dent the pace of Netflix subscriptions. Netflix, which ended first-quarter 2014 with 35.67 million subscribers, could be hurt by the increased competition from Amazon. “It is hard to see how Netfl ix gets to 60 to 90 million domestic subs, as management has suggested, with growing competition,” Bernstein said.

As for HBO, the estimated financial benefits may outweigh the loss of some cachet to the premium channel’s brand, now that once-exclusive titles are available on Amazon Prime. The network, however, has not included its biggest current titles like Girls, Game of Thrones and True Detective in the deal, allowing the network to maintain the value of HBO GO, which will soon be available on Amazon’s recently launched Fire TV digital streaming and gaming device.

It also doesn’t preclude the premium service from launching its own OTT service at some point down the line, according to Bernstein.

— R. Thomas Umstead

HBO Go, HBO’s TV Everywhere service, had another rough go of it Sunday as “overwhelming demand” driven by the premiere of season four of Game of Thrones took the service down temporarily.

“Looks like there’s trouble in the realm. Apologies for the inconvenience. We’ll be providing updates, so please stay tunes,” HBO Go said via Twitter amid viewer complaints that the service was crashing.

The service began to return to “several platforms” a couple of hours later, with HBO Go confirming later that night that the TV Everywhere service had been fully restored, but did not identify a root cause.

"HBO GO did experience issues due to overwhelming demand around the premiere of Game of Thrones. The service was fully restored on all platforms by midnight ET," an HBO spokeswoman said Monday.

The temporary outage was the second to occur in recent weeks. Last month, HBO Go suffered a similar problem during the live-streamed season one finale of True Detective.

HBO Go doesn’t typically have a huge impact on broadband networks. According to Sandvine’s latest Global Internet Phenomena Report, HBO’s TVE service accounted for just 0.67% of downstream traffic on fixed broadband networks in North America, versus the 31.6% that Netflix typically generates.