HBO ramps up its online service HBO Go
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
HBO, which once was wary of putting any of its content online, is now throwing everything on its shelves on HBO Go, its digital platform.
The pay cable channel, which has about 30 million subscribers, is now making more than 1,400 titles available on HBO Go. That doesn’t mean every show or movie that HBO has ever run will be available, just the ones it owns or has rights to put online. Previously, only about 600 HBO programs were on the site.
Among the series now available in their entirety are classics ‘The Sopranos,’ ‘Sex and the City,’ ‘The Wire’ and ‘Deadwood.’
HBO Go is available for free to anyone who pays to get HBO via cable or satellite. However, only a handful of distributors are offering it via broadband. Comcast, Cox, Verizon and AT&T all have deals with HBO, but other major distributors, including Time Warner Cable, which is Southern California’s largest provider, do not as yet.
While HBO Go will offer everything HBO owns or has rights for, HBO’s on-demand service still has a more limited offering. That has to do with the bandwidth capacity of cable and satellite operators. The pay channel hopes to be able to get more of its content available via on-demand.
-- Joe Flint