Los Angeles – A strong feeling that going over-the-top would create incremental growth for HBO was a primary reason why the premium programmer pulled the trigger on HBO Now, its new  standalone offering.

“It was done to grow,” Michael Lombardo, HBO’s president of programming, said here Thursday at NewBay Media’s Next TV Summit during an interview with Mark Robichaux, editorial director for Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News.

Lombardo said the stand-alone offering, currently offered by Apple and Cablevision Systems and coming soon to Google’s Android and Android TV platforms, was made to resonate with cord-cutters, cord-nevers and other younger consumers who are steering clear of big bundles as they get out of college and land their first jobs.

For them, “the idea of paying $125 per month for a cable package in addition to starting life [as an adult], is daunting,” he said.

While time will soon tell if HBO’s strategy will succeed, the programmer was willing to take a shot.

“It just felt that it's better to be in front of the pack than the last guy there,” Lombardo said. 

And the pay TV models are shifting as more and more content options become available to consumers.

“You can no longer rely on someone channel surfing to find you,” Lombardo said. “You can no longer rely on Comcast marketing you. You have to have a relationship with the viewer that means something." 

Lombardo also talked about HBO’s decision to offer HBO Now through distribution partners rather than do a direct-to-consumer play.

“We are determined to figure out a way to be ubiquitous in terms of who's distributing us,” he said. “When we made decision to go over-the-top, we made a decision not to handle credit and collections.”

Given the way viewing habits have shifted away from linear, appointment-based viewing to on-demands, Lombardo said he has been surprised that ratings for Game of Thrones have left The Sopranos in the dust (the finale for season five of GoT delivered a record 8.1 million viewers for the network).

“We never saw it [Game of Thrones] as a numbers phenomenon,” Lombardo said. “When we launched Game of Thrones it was a different world,” he added, noting that there’s now a multiplicity of premium networks, basic cable networks and emerging platforms that are all in the business of delivering scripted, branded content.

“Not in our wildest dream” did HBO expect to see ratings for GoT surpass The Sopranos, Lombardo said.

And what about the biggest question GoT fans had following the end of season five: Is Jon Snow really dead?

“I accepted the fact that there were no rules and anybody could go, but somehow [I thought] Jon Snow seemed off-limits,” Lombardo said. “As of today, he’s still dead.”

One thing that won’t happen: “They’re not going to bring him back for ratings…they’re scripting season six as we speak, and I’ll let you know when I read the outlines,” Lombardo quipped.

Lombardo also sees much more GoT to come for HBO as the show forges ahead into storylines that surpass the books. “We’re in season six. I’m hopeful for a seven and eight.” 

Los Angeles -- Thanks to a move away from monolithic, “big iron” infrastructure to much more agile, “virtualized” systems, programmers such as Disney/ABC Television Group will soon be in position to spin up new types of channels that could be made available for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, or perhaps just around specific events.

That was one of the potential use-case examples cited here Thursday at the Multichannel News/B&C NextTV Summit during a case study about “Project Columbus,” an initiative that Disney/ABC and Imagine Communications kicked off in 2011 to virtualize the programmer’s workflow, master control and playback operations, positioning the broadcaster to support a new IP-based world that now includes streaming players, gaming consoles, tablets and smartphones and is, more generally, altering the way viewers are consuming video. 

The initiative, which is global in scope, aimed to “virtualize and get away from big iron broadcast centers that don’t have the ability to scale,” Vince Roberts (pictured above, at right), Disney/ABC Television Group’s EVP, global operations and chief technology officer, said. 

Project Columbus, which automates workflows and builds virtualized environments that live in private, hosted clouds “gives us scale, and the ability to move our markets,” he said.

The approach, which allows programmers to run and manage key functions in software on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment, is gaining momentum among several broadcasters, noted Imagine CTO Steve Reynolds (pictured above, center), as they look for ways to launch more channels at a more rapid clip, and to enter new markets and geographies. It will also put them in a better position to introduce new encoding platforms that will be used for 4K/Ultra HD.

The move to virtualized systems, he told session moderator, Broadcasting & Cable contributing editor George Winslow (pictured, far left), will enable programmers to stand up new channels on an “an ad hoc, on-demand basis.”

“We have to be in a virtual environment to take advantage of an industry on the consumer side that is changing so rapidly,” Roberts said. “I can spin up a workflow in minutes, not months.”

“This is not a science experiment,” he added, noting that the project is being rolled out to support Disney Channel and an initial eight ABC feeds later this year.

As for why the timing is right to move away from hardware-based functions, Reynolds said Moore’s Law has finally caught up with what will be demanded of these new virtualized systems. “We’re now at a place that this is finally feasible,” he said.

Roberts acknowledged that the shift also required a cultural shift and much discussion to get everyone on board with the program.

Whether you’re converting to the cloud or changing your business structure, “Everybody needs to buy in,” Roberts said, noting that it also requires “champions deep in the organization” – people he referred to as “change agents.”

“It’s not an insignificant effort,” he said.