Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television network owned by WarnerMedia Studios & Networks and the flagship property of parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. Maintaining a general entertainment format, programming featured on the network consists primarily of theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs as well as made-for-cable movies, documentaries and occasional comedy and concert specials. HBO—also the oldest and longest continuously operating subscription television service (basic or a la carte premium) in the United States—pioneered modern pay television upon its launch on November 8, 1972: it was the first television service to be directly transmitted and distributed to individual cable television systems, and was the conceptual blueprint for the "premium channel," pay television services sold to subscribers for an extra monthly fee that do not accept traditional advertising and present their programming without editing for objectionable material.
Introduction
HBO
HBO | Introduction
WarnerMedia Studios & Networks WarnerMedia Studios & Networks WarnerMedia Studios & Networks. WarnerMedia Studios & Networks and Home Box Office, Inc.
who is tyrion lannister?
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A fictional character in the "A Song of Ice and Fire".
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who created this character?
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George R. R. Martin
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can you describe the character in brief?
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He is a prominent point of view character in the series, having the most viewpoint chapters (49 chapters) in the first five published novels.
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did he appear in the tele series versions as well?
user
Yes, in Game of Thrones.
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who plays his character in it?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
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did this character win any awards?
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The actor won a  Golden Globe Award.
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which tv channel adapted the author's books for a tele series?
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HBO
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do they publish any reading material?
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Yes, a newsmagazine.
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when was this channel set up?
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November 8, 1972
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who owns it?
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HBO has since expanded to include seven multiplex channels in the United States; and, through its namesake parent subsidiary, twelve active and three defunct international services (either owned by WarnerMedia directly or through programming and brand licensing agreements with domestic media companies) across four continents, and various television, film and home entertainment ventures. This article details the history of HBO tracing to its founding by Sterling Communications (then controlled by Time Inc.) in July 1971, and its operational history from the channel's November 1972 launch to its current ownership by WarnerMedia.
History of HBO | Introduction
to transmit three HBO feeds and the primary Cinemax channel through the compression standard to participating systems that adopted the technology, and served as the benchmark for the launch of additional multiplex channels of both HBO and Cinemax utilizing compression—commencing with the December 1996 launch of HBO Family and concluding with the 2001 launches of four Cinemax channels: WMax (now MovieMax), @Max (now Cinemáx), OuterMax and 5StarMax.
History of HBO | Time Warner ownership; rising prominence of original programming (1989–2016)
On March 4, 1989, Warner Communications—which, ironically, was part-owner of rival pay-cable service The Movie Channel from its launch in 1973 until joint venture group Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment sold its stake in Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. (now Showtime Networks) to majority partner Viacom in 1986—announced its intent to merge with HBO parent Time Inc. for $14.9 billion in cash and stock. Following two failed attempts by Paramount Communications to legally block the merger, as Paramount was seeking to acquire Time in a hostile takeover bid, the merger was completed on January 10, 1990, resulting in the consolidated entity creating Time Warner (now known as WarnerMedia), which , remains the parent company of the network.
History of HBO | Time Warner ownership; rising prominence of original programming (1989–2016)
(Manhattan Cable Television would be integrated into Time Warner Cable—formed through a consolidation of the cable system assets of American Television and Communications [ATC], which Time acquired for $140 million in January 1978 and subsequently integrated with Manhattan Cable, and Warner Cable Communications—and would adopt its parent unit's identity in January 1993. Time Warner Cable would be spun-off from its namesake parent as an independent company in 2009, and later merged into Charter Communications in May 2016.) By the start of 1990, HBO served 17.3 million subscribers out of a cumulative 23.7 million subscribers covered between it and sister network Cinemax.
History of HBO | Time Warner ownership; rising prominence of original programming (1989–2016)
Home Box Office (HBO)—originally established on November 8, 1972, as a premium cable television network in the United States—has, since 1991, expanded into a family of international pay television channels presently owned by WarnerMedia subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. and operated through sister subsidiary WarnerMedia International or owned by third-party media companies through programming and brand licensing partnerships. In countries where an HBO-branded network does not exist in its own right, the network's programming is licensed instead to domestic pay television services or through a basic cable channel; several of these are permitted to refer to themselves as the "Home of HBO", such as with Sky Atlantic and Now TV in parts of Europe, Fox Showcase and Binge in Australia, and OCS in France.
List of HBO international channels | Introduction
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television network owned by WarnerMedia Studios & Networks and the flagship property of parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. Maintaining a general entertainment format, programming featured on the network consists primarily of theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs as well as made-for-cable movies, documentaries and occasional comedy and concert specials. HBO—also the oldest and longest continuously operating subscription television service (basic or a la carte premium) in the United States—pioneered modern pay television upon its launch on November 8, 1972: it was the first television service to be directly transmitted and distributed to individual cable television systems, and was the conceptual blueprint for the "premium channel," pay television services sold to subscribers for an extra monthly fee that do not accept traditional advertising and present their programming without editing for objectionable material.
HBO | Introduction
HBO sold half of its ownership in TriStar in 1986.
HBO Films | Background
HBO (Home Box Office) is an American pay television network owned by AT&T through its multimedia and entertainment division, WarnerMedia. In correspondence, it may refer to: HBO may also refer to:
HBO (disambiguation) | Introduction
(Two additional "World Championship Boxing"/"Boxing After Dark" cards would follow that originally scheduled final broadcast, on November 24 and December 8, respectively.) The decision cited factors including the influx of sports-based streaming services (such as DAZN and ESPN+) and issues with promoters that hampered its ability to acquire high-profile fight cards, and resulting declining ratings and loss of interest in the sport among HBO's subscribers, as well as WarnerMedia's efforts to have scripted programming become the primary focus of the network’s original content. (Since the discontinuance of live sports telecasts, the HBO Sports production unit now exclusively serves to produce sports magazine shows and documentaries for the network.)
History of HBO | AT&T ownership (2016–present)
On January 1, 1993, HBO and Cinemax—accompanied by Showtime and The Movie Channel—became the first television services in the world to transmit their signals using digital compression technology. The compressed satellite feeds, fed through Galaxy 1, were fixed at compression ratios intended to maintain "state-of-the-art" signal quality at provider headends. (The DigiCipher system, developed in 1992 by General Instrument to replace the Videocipher II system that was standard among satellite-delivered cable channels, was designed with an advanced encryption algorithm co-developed by AT&T that was structured to prevent the signal piracy issues that were apparent with the Videocipher II.) The adoption of the DigiCipher allowed Home Box Office, Inc.
History of HBO | Time Warner ownership; rising prominence of original programming (1989–2016)
As HBO was being developed, the Time Inc./Sterling Communications partnership elected for a local origination channel operated by Sterling Manhattan Cable Television (which served as the progenitor of the MSG Network) to handle production responsibities for home game broadcasts involving the New York Knicks and New York Islanders—both based at Madison Square Garden—that would be televised on HBO throughout its initial Mid-Atlantic U.S. service area. (HBO founder Charles Dolan, through Cablevision, would purchase the arena and its headlining sports teams in a $1.075-billion joint bid with the ITT Corporation in August 1994; since 2015, all three properties are owned by his son, James L.
HBO | Professional and tournament sports
channels, such as "You Me Her" from Audience Network (coincidentally now co-owned with HBO under AT&T), though this series later moved to Crave’s main channel.
HBO (Canadian TV channel) | Acquired programming
Home Box Office, Inc., the WarnerMedia subsidiary that operates HBO‘s U.S. and international services, is not a shareholder in the Canadian HBO channel, and only licenses the name, logo and programming to Bell Media.
HBO (Canadian TV channel) | Introduction
District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled in favor of AT&T, and dismissed antitrust claims asserted in the DOJ's lawsuit. The merger closed two days later on June 14, 2018, with Time Warner becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, which renamed the unit WarnerMedia; the Home Box Office, Inc. unit and its assets were assigned to the newly formed WarnerMedia Entertainment division, although it continues to operate as an autonomous subsidiary. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington unanimously upheld the lower court's ruling in favor of AT&T on February 26, 2019. In July 2018, "The New York Times" obtained audio from a corporate town hall meeting featuring AT&T executive John Stankey—CEO of WarnerMedia from the merger's completion until May 2020, when Stankey shifted to chief operating officer during his transition to replacing Randall Stephenson as AT&T's CEO—who argued that HBO's current content model was not profitable enough, and that the network had to produce more content (similar to that offered by streaming services such as Netflix) in order to achieve more engagement with subscribers (including short-form content oriented towards mobile devices), and that HBO needed to "move beyond 35 to 40 percent penetration to have this become a much more common product." Stankey's statement contradicted the fact that HBO had been consistently profitable over the last three years, totaling nearly $6 billion, while allocating more than $2 billion per year for programming.
History of HBO | AT&T ownership (2016–present)
HBO's origins trace to December 1, 1965, when Charles Dolan—who had already done pioneering work in the commercial use of cables—was granted a franchise permit by the New York City Council to build a cable television system encompassing the Lower Manhattan section of New York City (traversing southward from 79th Street on the Upper East Side to 86th Street on the Upper West Side). Dolan was one of three applicants to be awarded cable franchise permits by the City of New York on that date, joined by TelePrompTer Corporation (which was assigned most of Upper Manhattan) and CATV Enterprises Inc.
History of HBO | Background and development (pre-1972)
Home Box Office, Inc. was reassigned to WarnerMedia Entertainment, placing it under the same umbrella as sister basic cable networks TBS, TNT and TruTV (which were formerly part of the dissolved Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary), and under the leadership of former NBC and Showtime executive Bob Greenblatt. On August 7, 2020, WarnerMedia announced a major corporate reorganization in which Home Box Office, Inc. and other WarnerMedia Entertainment assets were consolidated with Warner Bros. Entertainment to form a new content division, WarnerMedia Studios & Networks Group. Casey Bloys—who has served as President of Programming for HBO and Cinemax since May 2016—added oversight of HBO Max and WarnerMedia's basic cable networks to his responsibilities.
HBO | AT&T ownership (2016–present)
unit and its assets were assigned to the newly formed WarnerMedia Entertainment division, although it continues to operate as an autonomous subsidiary. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington unanimously upheld the lower court's ruling in favor of AT&T on February 26, 2019. On February 28, 2019, Richard Plepler stepped down from his position as CEO of Home Box Office, Inc., after a collective 27-year tenure at HBO and twelve years as head of the network and its parent unit. On March 4 of that year, AT&T announced a major reorganization of WarnerMedia's assets, dividing WarnerMedia's television properties among three corporate divisions.
HBO | AT&T ownership (2016–present)
It eventually became the first television channel in the world to begin transmitting via satellite—expanding the growing regional pay service into a national television network—in September 1975, and, alongside sister channel Cinemax, was among the first two American pay television services to offer complimentary multiplexed channels in August 1991. The network operates seven 24-hour, linear multiplex channels as well as a traditional subscription video on demand platform (HBO On Demand) and an eponymous streaming service (which launched as HBO Now in April 2015, and has over five million subscribers in the United States ), and its content is the centerpiece of HBO Max, an expanded streaming platform operated separately from but sharing management with Home Box Office, Inc., which also includes original programming produced exclusively for the service and content from other WarnerMedia properties.
HBO | Introduction
On August 1, 1991, HBO and Cinemax became the first subscription television services to launch "multiplexed" companion channels—a term coined by then-CEO Michael Fuchs to equate the channel tier to a multi-screen movie theater—offering, at no extra charge to HBO subscribers, distinct schedules with programs culled from HBO's programming libraries separate from offerings shown concurrently on their respective parent primary channels. TeleCable customers in Overland Park, Kansas, Racine, Wisconsin and suburban Dallas (Richardson and Plano, Texas) that subscribed to either service began receiving two additional HBO channels, HBO2 and HBO3, as part of a test launch. (A secondary Cinemax channel, Cinemax 2 [now MoreMax], was also test launched on the three systems.) The HBO multiplex expanded to include four additional channels: HBO Family (on December 1, 1996), HBO Comedy (on May 6, 1999), HBO Zone (on May 6, 1999), and HBO Latino (on November 1, 2000).
History of HBO | Time Warner ownership; rising prominence of original programming (1989–2016)
Shore owned and operated Comedy Channel Inc. from 1982 until her death—a company established to create and sell video tapes of performances at The Comedy Store. In 1989, HBO launched its premium cable service The Comedy Channel. Shore's suit claimed HBO's service was an "indirect unauthorized use" of the name and trademark Comedy Channel. Mitzi Shore retained counsel James Blancarte and sued HBO for copyright infringement. The channel merged with Viacom's competing Ha! channel two years later, first under the name CTV: The Comedy Network, and then under its current name Comedy Central.
Mitzi Shore | Comedy Channel Inc
In August 1986, Cannon Films acquired Thorn EMI's interest in Thorn EMI/HBO Video, which Time Inc. subsequently renamed HBO/Cannon Video upon transferring partial ownership of the unit. HBO acquired Cannon's interest in the venture in April 1987, amid financial losses incurred by the film studio after an unsuccessful attempt at releasing a series of larger budget films that floundered in box office revenue; the unit was subsequently renamed HBO Video. Over time, HBO Video—which eventually became HBO Home Video in January 1994—shifted focus away from releasing films from independent studios to releasing HBO's catalog of original programs and films on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.
Home Box Office, Inc. | Home video
Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO) is an American multinational media and entertainment company operating as a unit of WarnerMedia Studios & Networks, and controlled by AT&T through mass media and entertainment subsidiary WarnerMedia. Founded by Charles Dolan and based out of WarnerMedia's corporate headquarters at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in the West Side of Manhattan, its main properties include its namesake pay television network Home Box Office (HBO), sister service Cinemax, the HBO streaming service (a secondary HBO-branded service, HBO Max, is operated under an eponymous sister subsidiary of WarnerMedia that shares principal management with Home Box Office, Inc.), and HBO Films.
Home Box Office, Inc. | Introduction
HBO typically prohibited showings of X-/NC-17-rated, pornographic and foreign art films. Home Box Office’s extensive and exclusive sports coverage differentiated it from many other subscription television services that launched in the succeeding decades, laying the groundwork—to an extent—for the development of ESPN and other cable-originated sports networks, and was replicated during the 1970s and early 1980s by local subscription services—including PRISM, ONTV and Wometco Home Theater. Through a contractual amendment signed on November 1, 1972, HBO inherited broadcast rights to Madison Square Garden-originated events that had been contracted to a Sterling Manhattan for one of its local origination channels (which served as the progenitor of the MSG Network) since May 1969.
History of HBO | Launch and expansion as a regional service (1972–1975)
It has also licensed or maintained ownership interests in international versions of HBO and Cinemax, most of which are managed by Home Box Office, Inc. through sister division WarnerMedia International. The company has achieved several pioneering innovations in the cable television industry, including its satellite uplink of HBO as the first television network in the world to transmit through that technology, and the development of original programming for pay television.
Home Box Office, Inc. | Introduction
Controlling ownership was originally held by a consortium of five cable television providers (Comcast, Continental Cablevision, Cox Cable, TCI, and Warner Cable), HBO/Warner Communications, and various founding shareholders, with HBO directly programming and managing the network. In 1989, after Time Inc. bought Warner Communications to fend off a takeover bid by Paramount, the new Time Warner company held four of the eight major ownership positions and took over management control of Movietime and renamed the network as E!: Entertainment Television on June 1, 1990; this name change was made to emphasize its widening coverage of the celebrity–industrial complex, contemporary film, television and music, daily Hollywood gossip, and fashion.
E! | Introduction
By 1977, two fledgling cable networks had joined HBO in pioneering satellite delivery for the cable television industry, along with conceiving the concept of modern basic cable service, becoming the first of many to adopt satellite transmission over the coming years: Atlanta-based independent station WTCG-TV (soon to become WTBS), which, through then-owner Ted Turner, became the first independent station to become a national superstation in December 1976; and the upstart CBN Satellite Service (and later to become the present-day Freeform), started by Pat Robertson as the first satellite-delivered religious network in April 1977. By April 1976, Home Box Office reached 386,000 subscribers (306,000 through its terrestrial microwave-landline network, 75,000 through satellite distribution, and 5,000 through MDS-served apartment complexes), increasing to 500,000 subscribers by August 1976 (including 180,000 added through the July 27 closure of its purchase of pay-television programming services company Telemation Program Services, which Time/HBO acquired to provide content mediation with program distributors and, with initial intent, to use Telemation to develop "customized" programing schedules for HBO's cable affiliates).
HBO | National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1993)
For its first three years of operation, it used microwave technology to transmit its programming to CATV and MMDS providers in Pennsylvania and New York. On September 30, 1975, beginning with its telecast of the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, HBO became the first television network to utilize communications satellites to transmit its programming, immediately expanding its distribution to UA Columbia Cablevision's Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, Florida, systems and the American Television and Communications Corporation system in Jackson, Mississippi. The first basic cable network was Atlanta, Georgia independent station WTCG (channel 17), which was uplinked to satellite on December 17, 1976, months after station owner Ted Turner reached an agreement with media executive Howard H.
Television in the United States | Cable and satellite television
HBO Now is a deprecated American subscription video on demand streaming service for premium television network HBO that is owned by WarnerMedia subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. Officially unveiled on March 9 and launched on April 7, 2015 the service allows subscribers on-demand access to HBO's library of original programs, films and other content on personal computers, smartphones, tablet devices and digital media players. Unlike HBO Go, HBO's online video on demand service for existing subscribers of the linear television channel, HBO Now is available as a standalone service and does not require a television subscription to use, targeting cord cutters who use competing services such as Netflix and Hulu.
HBO Now | Introduction
to 3:00 a.m. ET/PT) on weekends. By April 1980, when the current version of its 1975 logo was first introduced, the full "Home Box Office" name had been de-emphasized in most on-air and other promotional parlance, in favor of identifying under the "HBO" initialism. (The full name is still used as the legal corporate name of its parent subsidiary under WarnerMedia, and is used on-air in copyright legalese during the end credits of its original programs and network IDs shown twice per day—in the morning and late afternoon—at the close of promotional breaks; presenting credits shown at the start of its original specials; and a proprietary vanity card—based on the "static noise" card that has preceded HBO's original series, specials and documentaries since 1993—shown at the close of the network's original programs.) Subscribership mostly doubled each year into the early 1980s, increasing from around four million subscribers (across 1,755 systems) in December 1979 to around 10.4 million subscribers (across 3,600+ systems) by November 1982.
HBO | National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1993)
(Time-Life's interest in Sterling Communications concurrently increased from 25% to 44.5%.) Desperate to keep the company afloat, Dolan began conceiving ideas to help make Sterling Manhattan profitable. In the summer of 1971, while on a family vacation en route to France aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, he began developing a proposal for a cable-originated television channel. The concept, codenamed "The Green Channel", was for a subscription service that would offer unedited theatrical movies licensed from the major Hollywood film studios and live sporting events, all presented without interruptions by advertising and sold for a flat monthly fee to prospective subscribers.
History of HBO | Background and development (pre-1972)
Building on this idea, on October 10, 2018, Stankey stated that the company was developing a new over-the-top (OTT) streaming service that would feature content from various WarnerMedia properties including HBO, Turner and Warner Bros. WarnerMedia would later announce on July 9, 2019, that the service would be co-branded with HBO, under the name HBO Max. The service—which was developed under a separate infrastructure from HBO's existing streaming platforms, HBO Go and HBO Now, and will not immediately replace those services—launched on May 27, 2020. On September 27, 2018, HBO announced it would cease airing its boxing telecasts after 45 years—marking the end of competitive sports event broadcasts on the network—following the October 27 edition of "HBO World Championship Boxing".
History of HBO | AT&T ownership (2016–present)
"That's Got His Own" is the 12th episode of the fourth season of the HBO original series "The Wire". Written by George Pelecanos from a story by Ed Burns & George Pelecanos, and directed by Joe Chappelle, it originally aired on December 3, 2006.
That's Got His Own | Introduction
(which was assigned to a portion of the city's Upper West Side, extending north of the Harlem River, and The Bronx's Riverdale neighborhood). Dolan's maiden television venture was Teleguide, a closed-circuit television system he started in June 1962, distributing a schedule of tourist information, news, interview segments and feature interstitials to hotels, and by 1964, apartment buildings and office buildings in the New York metropolitan area. Through Dolan's company, Sterling Information Services (operated by Teleguide parent Sterling Movies U.S.A.), Manhattan Cable TV Services began limited cable service in September 1966. Manhattan Cable (renamed Sterling Manhattan Cable Television in January 1971) was the first urban underground cable television system to operate in the United States.
History of HBO | Background and development (pre-1972)
In August 1982, MCA Inc. (then-owner of Universal Pictures), Gulf+Western (then-owner of Paramount Pictures) and Warner Communications reached an agreement to jointly acquire The Movie Channel (TMC), in which the three companies combined would acquire a controlling 75% interest in the service (with each holding a 25% ownership stake) from Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment. The proposal was motivated by the studios wanting to increase their share of revenue for licensing rights to their films to premium television services, as well as concerns that HBO's dominance of that market and its pre-buying of pay cable rights to films prior to their theatrical release would result in that service holding undue negotiating power for the television rights, resulting in a lower than suitable licensing fee rate the studios would be paid for individual films.
Showtime (TV network) | Formation of Showtime Networks and ownership by Viacom (1982–2005)
Dolan wanted to offset the service's start-up costs by having Sterling enter into carriage agreements with other cable television providers to transmit and sell the service to their customers, and draw revenue from fees charged to subscribers who added the channel onto their existing cable service (which then consisted exclusively of local and imported broadcast stations). Dolan later presented his idea to management at Time-Life, who, despite the potential benefit to the company's cable assets, were initially hesitant to consider the "Green Channel" proposal. In the early 1970s, the cable television industry was not very profitable, and was under constant scrutiny from FCC regulators and the major broadcast television networks (CBS, NBC and ABC), who saw cable as a threat to their viability.
History of HBO | Background and development (pre-1972)
With external expenses resulting in consistent financial losses, in the summer of 1971, while on a family vacation to France aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, a desperate Dolan—wanting to help Sterling Manhattan turn profitable and to prevent Time-Life, Inc. (then the book publishing unit of Time Inc.) from pulling its investment in the system—developed a proposal for a cable-originated television channel. Codenamed "The Green Channel", the conceptual subscription service would offer unedited theatrical movies licensed from the major Hollywood film studios and live sporting events, all presented without interruptions by advertising and sold for a flat monthly fee to prospective subscribers.
HBO | Development and early expansion as a regional service (1971–1975)
Although essentially operating as a joint venture of Bell and Movie Central's parent company Corus Entertainment, the east and west feeds were technically separate channels wholly owned by the parent company of the applicable regional service. In any event, HBO's parent company WarnerMedia was not (and continues to not be) a shareholder, and only licenses the name, logo and programming to Bell.
Crave (TV network) | HBO multiplex channel
The scrambling of HBO was met with much protest from owners of big-dish systems, most of which had no other option at the time for receiving such channels, claiming that clear signals from cable channels would be difficult to receive. Eventually HBO allowed dish owners to subscribe directly to their service for $12.95 per month, a price equal to or higher than what cable subscribers were paying, and required a descrambler to be purchased for $395. This led to the attack on HBO's transponder Galaxy 1 by John R. MacDougall in April 1986. One by one, all commercial channels followed HBO's lead and began scrambling their channels.
History of television | TVRO/C-band satellite era
In 1979, Viacom sold a 50% ownership interest in Showtime to the TelePrompTer Corporation. On July 4, 1981, Showtime adopted a 24-hour programming schedule (rival HBO would eventually follow suit in December of that year). In 1982, Group W Cable, a subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corporation (which had acquired TelePrompTer the previous year), sold its 50% stake in Showtime back to Viacom for $75 million; the sale of Group W's stake in the channel occurred as the company had entered into a partnership with Walt Disney Productions (now The Walt Disney Company) to develop a competing premium service, The Disney Channel (Group W dropped out of the joint venture that September, due to disagreements over creative control and financial obligations).
Showtime (TV network) | Early history (1976–1982)
On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced an offer to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion. Time Warner shareholders approved the merger on February 15, 2017. On November 20, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Time Warner in an attempt to block the merger, citing antitrust concerns surrounding the transaction. U.S. clearance of the proposed merger was affirmed by court ruling on June 12, 2018. The merger closed two days later on June 14, 2018, with Time Warner becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, which renamed the unit WarnerMedia; the Home Box Office, Inc.
HBO | AT&T ownership (2016–present)
Dolan curried the financial backing of Time-Life, Inc. (then the book publishing unit of Time Inc.), resulting in Manhattan Cable becoming one of the company's first cable system properties. Despite the investments from Time-Life's share of Sterling (initially 20% at the beginning of operations), Sterling Manhattan consistently lost money throughout its first six years of operation; the company incurred much of its debt from underground wiring expenses (costing as much as $300,000 per mile), and its difficulties attracting new subscribers to generate income (Manhattan Cable managed to receive only around 400 customers by 1967). On August 27, 1969, in an ownership consolidation of the cable assets, Sterling Communications acquired the 49% share in Sterling Manhattan held by Time-Life, in exchange for stock and other assets worth $1.84 million.
History of HBO | Background and development (pre-1972)
The original HBO logo—used from the channel's November 8, 1972 launch until February 28, 1975—consisted of a minimalist marquee light array surrounding a left-adjusted "Home Box Office" nameplate, rendered in mixed-caps, accompanied by a ticket stub image (the former and latter signifying the channel's initial film and event programming focus). The first iteration of the current HBO lettermark, designed by then Time-Life art director Betty E. Brugger, was introduced on March 1, 1975; it consisted of bold, uppercase "HBO" text incorporating a bullseye mark—derived from the tuning knobs found on then-current television set and cable converter box models—inside the cylindrical "O".
HBO | Branding
Selecciones en Español de HBO y Cinemax (later renamed HBO en Español in September 1993) is a defunct American Spanish language premium cable television service that was owned by Home Box Office, Inc., then a subsidiary of Time Warner, which operated from 1989 to 2000. The service's programming consisted of Spanish-dubbed versions of recent and older theatrically released motion pictures, and select HBO original and event programming aimed at a Hispanic and Latino audience. The service is a predecessor to HBO Latino, which replaced HBO en Español in November 2000. On January 2, 1989, Selecciones en Español de HBO y Cinemax (""Spanish Selections from HBO and Cinemax""), a Spanish-language audio feed transmitted through, depending on the cable system affiliate, either an auxiliary second audio program channel (accessible through built-in and external multichannel audio decoders) or audio simulcasts via FM radio, launched.
HBO | Selecciones en Español de HBO y Cinemax / HBO en Español
In August 1982, MCA Inc. (then-owner of Universal Pictures), Gulf and Western Industries (then-owner of Paramount Pictures) and Warner Communications reached an agreement to jointly acquire TMC, under which the three companies would acquire a combined controlling 75% interest in the service (with each holding a 25% ownership stake) from Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment. The proposal was guided by the motive of the studios wanting to increase their revenue share for licensing movie rights to premium television services; there were also concerns by the major studios that HBO's dominance of that market and its pre-buying of pay cable rights to films prior to their theatrical release would result in an undue balance of negotiating power over them by HBO, resulting in a lower than suitable licensing fee rate that would be paid to the distributors for individual titles.
The Movie Channel | Operational merger with Showtime (1983–1985)
These series produced by this HBO division are currently owned by HBO Entertainment/Warner Bros. Television (pre-1992 series) and ViacomCBS/CBS Television Distribution (post-1991 series), except for "Mystery Science Theater 3000" which is currently owned by Shout! Factory.
List of WarnerMedia television programs | HBO Downtown Productions
HBO's long-term move to upscale dramatic programming and an ownership transfer to AT&T's WarnerMedia also played a role in the decision, with an HBO executive commenting that "HBO is not a sports network."
HBO World Championship Boxing | Introduction
HBO Latin America is a company which owns several pay television networks in the region of Latin America. It was originally founded as a joint venture between Time Warner and Ole Communications, but as of May 4, 2020 it is fully owned by AT&T's WarnerMedia through its international division. In October 2019, WarnerMedia announced an agreement with Ole to acquire the latter's minority interest in the Spanish-language HBO, Max, and Cinemax channels in Latin America, in order to facilitate the future launch of the HBO Max streaming service in the region. HBO Brasil, and the companies' distribution partnership for Warner Channel and channels owned by other companies, are not affected at this time.
HBO Latin America Group | Introduction
Originally headquartered from the Time-Life Building on Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) in Midtown Manhattan, HBO initially relayed its programming via a network of microwave relay towers throughout the Northeastern United States to participating cable systems carrying the channel; On February 28, 1973, Sterling Communications announced it would spin-out HBO and associated assets into Home Box Office, Inc., a new subsidiary created in accordance with the sale of 9% of Sterling's HBO equity to Time Inc. (expanding its controlling shares to around 75% of HBO's equity) and a $3-million direct investment. Sterling also raised Time's equity in the company to 66.4% in exchange for the added HBO stake, through the purchase of additional stock and a converted $6.4-million note obligation.
Home Box Office, Inc. | Early history; spin-out from Sterling
The scrambling of HBO was met with much protest from owners of big-dish systems, most of which had no other option at the time for receiving such channels, claiming that clear signals from cable channels would be difficult to receive. Eventually HBO allowed dish owners to subscribe directly to their service for $12.95 per month, a price equal to or higher than what cable subscribers were paying, and required a descrambler to be purchased for $395. This led to the attack on HBO's transponder Galaxy 1 by John R. MacDougall in April 1986. One by one, all commercial channels followed HBO's lead and began scrambling their channels.
Satellite television | TVRO/C-band satellite era, 1980–1986
HBO Pictures started winning Emmy Awards in 1993 with two for "Barbarians at the Gate" and "Stalin". Around November 1996, John Matoian was appointed as president of HBO Pictures reporting to HBO chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes. Bewkes decided by April 1999 that he want a single original programming division. Programming president Chris Albrecht oversaw original series development, specials and miniseries and was selected over Matoian. Matoian resigned because he lost his direct reporting status and would have reported to Albrecht. Executive vice president of HBO NYC Colin Callender, who reported to Matoian, was promoted to take over as president of HBO Pictures.
HBO Films | History
(HBO Family continued to maintain a limited slate of original children's programming until 2003.)
HBO | Original programming
HBOS was formed by a merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland in 2001, Halifax having demutualised and floated four years prior.
HBOS | History
Take 2 (informally referred to as "HBO Take 2") is a defunct American premium cable television network that was owned by Home Box Office, Inc., then a subsidiary of the Time-Life division of Time Inc., which operated from April 1979 to January 1981. Marketed at a family audience and the first attempt at a companion pay service by the corporate HBO entity, the channel's programming consisted of recent and older theatrically released motion pictures. Take 2 was the first of three efforts by HBO to maintain a family-oriented pay service, predating the similarly formatted and short-lived mini-pay service Festival (launched in 1986) and the present-day multiplex channel HBO Family (launched in 1996).
HBO | Take 2
From its launch as a regional service, HBO purchased broadcast rights to theatrical movies on a per-title basis. The network pioneered the pay television industry practice, known as a "pre-buy," of buying the pay-cable rights to a movie from its releasing studio before it started filming, in exchange for agreeing to pay a specified share of a film's production costs; this allowed HBO to maintain exclusivity over film output arrangements and to save money allocated for film acquisitions. In June 1976, it signed a four-year exclusive deal with Columbia Pictures for a package of 20 films released between January 1977 and January 1981, in exchange for then-parent company Time, Inc.
HBO | Former first-run contracts
In these cases, HBO has left it up to individual rightsholders to decide whether to offer its programming on an over-the-top basis. In Canada, the Crave OTT streaming service launched a version with current HBO programming in November 2018, well after the launch of HBO Now. On April 1, 2015, as part of an agreement with Time Warner that renewed its carriage contract for the Turner Broadcasting System networks and gave its over-the-top television service Sling TV distribution rights to the linear HBO channel, Dish Network secured an option to become a distribution partner for HBO Now following the exclusivity period with Apple.
HBO Now | Availability
committing a $5-million production financing investment with Columbia over a period of between 12 and 18 months. Although HBO executives were reluctant at first to strike such arrangements, by the mid-1980s, the channel had transitioned to exclusive film output deals (now the standard among North American premium channels), in which a film studio licenses all or a proportion of their upcoming productions to a partner service over a multi-year contract. In 1983, HBO entered into three exclusive licensing agreements tied to production financing arrangements involving Tri-Star Pictures (formed as a co-production venture between Time, Inc./HBO, Columbia and CBS Inc.), Columbia Pictures (an exclusivity-based contract extension initially covering 50% of the studio's pre-June 1986 releases with a non-compete option to purchase additional Columbia titles) and Orion Pictures (encompassing a package of 30 films, in return for financial participation and a $10-million securities investment; the deal was indirectly associated with Orion's buyout of Filmways the year prior, in which HBO bought pay television rights to the studio's films).
HBO | Former first-run contracts
Time Warner Cable would be spun-off from its namesake parent as an independent company in 2009, and later merged into Charter Communications in May 2016.) By the start of 1990, HBO served 17.3 million subscribers out of a cumulative 23.7 million subscribers covered between it and sister network Cinemax. On November 15, 1989, Home Box Office, Inc. launched The Comedy Channel, a comedy-centered basic cable channel featuring clips excerpted from stand-up comedy sets, comedic feature films and television series. The Comedy Channel's programming model was similar to the original format of MTV (which, ironically, was launched under WarnerMedia predecessor Warner Communications and American Express's media joint venture, Warner–Amex Satellite Entertainment).
Home Box Office, Inc. | Time-Warner merger
After or around 1978, HBO was involved into preproduction financing films for exclusive pay-TV rights, which is risky as the films could be unpopular while alienated movie studios. The original Silver Screen Partners, L.P. was organized by Roland W. Betts, New York film investment broker to fund movies for HBO in 1982. The limited partnership sold through E.F. Hunton were oversubscribe and raised $83 million. HBO made a 50% guarantee on their investment for exclusive cable rights. HBO then joined with Columbia Pictures and CBS to form TriStar Pictures, which was expected to become a major film studio, in 1983.
HBO Films | Background
Each evening's schedule was arranged to present either a double feature (which, under FCC anti-siphoning rules then maintained to protect programming supply for broadcast stations until they were struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 1977, tended to be releases dating no more than two years from their initial theatrical exhibition), or a combination of either a sports or special event and a theatrical movie, often bridged by a short film or other interstitial content. Home Box Office licensed theatrical motion pictures from various film studios (such as Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures and Paramount Pictures) on a per-title basis; each film received as many as five showings during their scheduled calendar month, depending on the quantity of titles available each month.
History of HBO | Launch and expansion as a regional service (1972–1975)
In early 1984, HBO abandoned the exclusivity practice, citing internal research that concluded that subscribers showed indifference to efforts by premium channels to secure rights to studios' full slate of recently released films from to distinguish their programming due to VHS availability preceding pay-cable distribution in the release window. This change came after Frank Biondi was fired as HBO Chairman, reportedly for having "overextended the network in pre-buy and exclusive movie deals" as subscribership of pay-cable services declined. Biondi's replacement, Michael J. Fuchs, structured some of the subsequent deals as non-exclusive to allow HBO to divert more funding toward co-producing made-for-cable movies, other original programming and theatrical joint ventures (via Tri-Star and Silver Screen Partners).
HBO | Former first-run contracts
The logo would become widely recognized through a program opening sequence, often nicknamed "HBO in Space," produced in late 1981 by New York City-based production firm Liberty Studios and used in some capacity from September 20, 1982 to October 16, 1997. (It replaced a series of six CG-animated "HBO Feature Movie" intros used since April 1979, which Canadian pay service First Choice Superchannel later reused for its 1984–87 movie intros.) The original 70-second version begins inside an apartment, where a man tunes a television set's converter box and sits down with his wife to watch HBO. (A variant that begins with a dark cloudscape fading into the city sequence replaced the early version in December 1983.) As the camera pans out of the apartment window, a continuous stop motion flight (filmed on a computer-controlled camera) occurs over a custom-built model cityscape and countryside set against a painted twilight cyclorama.
HBO | Branding
Sid Topol, president of cable television equipment manufacturer Scientific Atlanta, met with RCA Americom Communications (which was granted FCC permission to operate and launch a telecommunications satellite), Home Box Office and a group of multiple system cable operators (MSOs) to propose having the RCA satellite transmit the HBO signal; Scientific Atlanta (through a client arrangement with Transcommunications Corp.) would agree to build earth-based satellite relay stations to be set up outside of HBO's Manhattan headquarters and to the service's client cable systems. RCA and HBO agreed to Topol's proposal, and the Time-Life board subsequently approved the satellite transmission plan. On April 11, 1975, Levin and Time-Life unveiled plans to distribute the HBO signal via satellite to cable systems elsewhere throughout the United States, announcing a $7.5-million agreement (including $6.5 million allocated by Levin) with RCA Americom to lease a transponder on the then-under construction Satcom I—which was expected to be launched at the end of 1975—for a five-year term.
History of HBO | National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1989)
HBO Nederland (Home Box Office) was a Dutch premium television network, owned by a joint venture between HBO and the largest cable television operator in the Netherlands, Ziggo. It launched on 9 February 2012. HBO Nederland offered three television channels, available in HD and SD, video-on-demand services and HBO GO. The programming consisted of HBO's own productions, TV series, documentaries and films from Warner Bros. HBO Netherlands closed on 31 December 2016. Cable company Ziggo has acquired the broadcasting licenses of HBO content for the Dutch market.
HBO Netherlands | Introduction
territories—including maintaining HBO's existing microwave network—would have been cost-prohibitive for Time/HBO due to limitations by time, expense and geography. The company announced a $7.5-million agreement with RCA Americom Communications to lease a transponder on the then-under construction Satcom I—which was expected to be launched at the end of 1975—for a five-year term. In addition, cable television equipment manufacturer Scientific Atlanta—per a proposal by company president Sid Topol—agreed to build earth-based satellite relay stations to beam the signal to and from HBO's Manhattan headquarters and client cable systems. HBO also signed an agreement to distribute the satellite feed on eight UA-Columbia Cablevision systems in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Arkansas and Washington State, and have earth station receivers built at their headends to intercept and relay the signal.
HBO | National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1993)
HBO (previously known as HBO Canada) is a Canadian premium television network from Crave (formerly The Movie Network), which is owned by Bell Media. The channel is primarily devoted to original programming and special events sourced from the HBO and Cinemax subscription services in the United States, as well as domestic motion pictures. Although branded distinctly from Crave's other channels, HBO is not available in Canada as a standalone channel; it is only included with a subscription to either the Crave linear pay TV service through a television provider, or the Crave OTT streaming service with the "Movies + HBO" add-on.
HBO (Canadian TV channel) | Introduction
Channel was created by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment originally tested as Sight on Sound until 1981 when it was officially launched as MTV. Channel started as Ha!, merged with HBO's The Comedy Channel the following year, became fully owned by Viacom in 2003. Originally TNN from 1983 to 2003 (as The Nashville Network until 1997; as The National Network until 2003) and was known as Spike until January 2018. Will relaunch as Paramount Movie Network in 2021.
ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks | Notes
Cinemax is an American pay television network owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. subsidiary of WarnerMedia Entertainment. Originally developed as a companion service to HBO, the channel's programming consists of recent and some older theatrically released feature films, original action drama series, documentaries and special behind-the-scenes featurettes. While Cinemax and HBO operate as separate premium services, their respective channel tiers are very frequently sold as a combined package by many multichannel television providers; however, customers have the option of subscribing to HBO and Cinemax's corresponding channel packages individually. On August 1, 1980, HBO launched Cinemax, a companion movie-based premium channel created as a direct competitor to The Movie Channel, then a smaller, standalone pay movie service owned by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment (then part-owned by WarnerMedia predecessor Warner Communications).
HBO | Cinemax
The oldest and longest continuously operating subscription television service in the United States, Home Box Office pioneered modern pay television when it launched as a microwave-transmitted regional service on November 8, 1972, and was a leader in the development and growth of the cable television industry as the first television service to be directly transmitted and distributed to individual cable systems; the first television channel in the world to begin transmitting its signal via communications satellite; the first pay television network to operate a standalone companion service (Take 2, now defunct; followed later by Cinemax and the now-defunct Festival); the first cable-originated network to win Emmy, Golden Globe and Peabody Awards; and one of the first two American pay television services (alongside Cinemax) to offer multiplexed channels complimentary to the parent service.
History of HBO | Introduction
Time/HBO reached agreements with various cable system operators—including MSOs like American Television and Communications Corporation, Comcast, Cox Cable Jones Intercable, Heritage Communications and TelePrompTer Cable—to redistribute the satellite feed. On September 30, 1975 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Home Box Office became the first television network to continuously deliver its signal via satellite when it transmitted the "Thrilla in Manila", televised from the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Philippines. Subscribers of UA-Columbia's Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, Florida systems and American Television and Communications's Jackson, Mississippi system joined HBO's existing cable and MDS affiliates in the Mid-Atlantic U.S.—some of which were beginning to transition from microwave to satellite delivery of the network—in receiving the heavyweight championship boxing match that saw Muhammad Ali defeat Joe Frazier by technical knockout.
HBO | National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1993)
Home Box Office, Inc. began diversifying its portfolio beyond cable television during the 1980s. In 1982, HBO entered into a joint venture with Columbia Pictures and CBS Theatrical Films to form Tri-Star Pictures (the hyphen in the name was removed in 1991), to pool resources to split the ever-growing costs of making feature films. The studio's first production, Kevin Costner-led "The Natural", was released in 1984. Tri-Star entered into the television production business, in April 1987, with the formation of Tri-Star Television. Towards the second half of the decade, the partnership transitioned into a singularly owned entity: CBS sold its ownership stake in the studio in November 1985, followed by HBO/Time Inc.
Home Box Office, Inc. | Film and television production
The company was bought by its managers in 2013.
The Channel Company | Introduction
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television network that is the flagship property of Home Box Office, Inc., a subsidiary of the WarnerMedia Studios & Networks division of WarnerMedia. The network primarily broadcasts theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs as well as made-for-cable movies, documentaries, and occasional stand-up comedy and concert specials. HBO does not accept traditional advertising, although it typically airs programming promotions between shows; it also presents content without editing for profanity, violence, sexual depictions, nudity, drug use or other subjectively objectionable material, which—besides being able to depict mature subject matter usually not allowed to air on advertiser-supported television networks—has allowed the network to give program creators full creative autonomy over their projects.
History of HBO | Introduction
HBO also maintains sub-run agreements—covering television and streaming licensing of films that have previously received broadcast or syndicated television airings—for theatrical films distributed by Paramount Pictures (including content from subsidiaries and/or acquired library partners The Cannon Group, Carolco Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies and Republic Pictures, all for films released prior to 2011), Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (including content from Walt Disney Pictures, and former subsidiaries Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax), Sony Pictures Entertainment (including content from subsidiaries/library partners Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, ELP Communications, Morgan Creek Entertainment, Screen Gems, Revolution Studios, and former HBO sister company TriStar Pictures, all for films released prior to 2005), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (including content from subsidiaries United Artists, Orion Pictures and The Samuel Goldwyn Company), and Lions Gate Entertainment (for films released prior to 2010).
HBO | Movie library
HBO also signed an agreement to distribute the satellite feed on eight UA-Columbia Cablevision systems in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Arkansas and Washington State, and have earth station receivers built at their headends to intercept and relay the signal. Now that a more superior transmission method than Home Box Office's existing land-based distribution network was being developed, Time/HBO lined up agreements with various cable system operators—including MSOs like American Television and Communications Corporation, Comcast, Cox Cable Jones Intercable, Heritage Communications and TelePrompTer Cable—to redistribute the satellite feed for system-determined fees of between $6 and $9 per month. HBO also entered into preliminary discusions with Kansas City-based regional cable service Target Network Television, from which a deal did not materialize, to share a transponder, either by dividing their respective airtime to allow HBO broad coverage in the Midwestern United States or dividing transmission by geographic region.
History of HBO | National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1989)
By the end of 1977, the network had around one million subscribers across 435 cable and MDS systems serving 45 states. Time's third-quarter fiscal report that year disclosed that HBO had turned its first profit in nearly five years of operation. The network achieved full nationwide distribution in December 1978, having garnered 750 cable affiliates in all 50 U.S. states with around two million subscribers. Programming gradually expanded over time; by January 1979, HBO's programming day lasted between nine and eleven hours per day (usually from 5:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. ET/PT) on weekdays and around 12½ hours (usually from 2:30 p.m.
HBO | National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1993)
MCA and Paramount subsequently became the sole owners of the channel (with each company owning a 50% interest).
USA Network | Paramount and Universal ownership (1977–1994)
The Comedy Channel was a television comedy cable channel owned by HBO, a division of Time Warner. It premiered on November 15, 1989 at 6 PM ET. In 1991, HBO agreed to merge the channel with Viacom's competing channel, Ha!. The new network, CTV: The Comedy Network, premiered on April 1, 1991, but rebranded to Comedy Central on June 1, 1991. Most of the Comedy Channel's original programs were produced in the HBO Downtown Studios on East 23rd Street in Manhattan.
The Comedy Channel (American TV channel) | Introduction
In an effort to capitalize on the swift national growth that Home Box Office (HBO) had experienced since it began transmitting via satellite in September 1975, Home Box Office, Inc.—then owned by the Time-Life Television unit of Time Inc.—experimented with a companion pay service to sell to prospective subscribers—including existing HBO customers—with Take 2, a movie-centered premium channel marketed at a family audience that launched on April 1, 1979. The "mini-pay" service (a smaller-scale pay television channel sold at a discounted rate) tried to cater to cable subscribers reluctant to subscribe to HBO because of its cost and potentially objectionable content in some programs.
Cinemax | Development and early expansion; ventures into comedy and music programming (1980–1989)
Ha! was an American pay television channel owned by Viacom; it was one of the first American all-comedy channels available in basic-tier television offers. Launched on April 1, 1990 at 7 p.m. ET, it competed with another startup comedy-oriented cable channel, HBO-owned The Comedy Channel. In 1991, the two channels merged to form Comedy Central.
Ha! (TV channel) | Introduction
The original Viacom which operated Ha!, (not the current version which owns Comedy Central) bought out the Time Warner (which operated The Comedy Channel and belonged to HBO) half of the network in 2003. Since the purchase, the name "Comedy Partners, Inc." remained on the closing credits on most Comedy Central shows.
The Comedy Channel (American TV channel) | Ha! and Comedy Channel merge to create Comedy Central
As a result of the 1989 Time-Warner merger, HBO and Cinemax holds pay-cable exclusivity over all newer Warner Bros. films for the duration of their joint ownership. 20th Century Fox first signed a non-exclusive deal with HBO in January 1986, covering Fox films released between 1985 and 1988, along with a production co-financing agreement involving HBO original programs; the pact transitioned to an exclusivity arrangement with the 1988 renewal. The first-run film output agreement with Fox was renewed by HBO for ten years on August 15, 2012 (with a provision allowing the studio to release its films through digital platforms such as iTunes and Amazon Video during the channel's term of license of an acquired film for the first time).
HBO | Background
HBO bought the program in December 2002 for a two-year contract on the network.
Putting It Together: Direct from Broadway | Introduction
Canadian rights to HBO-owned and -distributed programming are held by Bell Media, the mass-media affiliate of telecom company Bell Canada. Programming is offered through Bell's Crave pay TV service, which includes an HBO-branded multiplex channel which launched in 2008 and features the U.S. channel's original programming; the over-the-top Crave streaming service; and Bell's French-language pay TV service Super Écran, along with occasional airings of library programs on the company's basic cable channels. Outside of the required brand licensing to use the HBO trademarks and logo, HBO parent WarnerMedia does not have an ownership interest in these services, and, as such, the Canadian service is the only HBO channel that WarnerMedia does not operate.
List of HBO international channels | Canada
HBO began transmitting a high definition simulcast feed on March 6, 1999, becoming the first American cable television network to begin simulcast their programming in the format. For the first 23 months of its existence, the HD feed only transmitted theatrical films from the network's programming suppliers (initially accounting for about 45% of its available feature film output, expanding to around 60% by early 2001) and HBO's in-house original movies in the format, as existing widescreen prints of those films were already scalable in the 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio and could readily be upconverted to HD resolution. Original programming began to be made available in HD on January 14, 2001, when the network commenced a 13-week Sunday "encore" presentation of the second season of "The Sopranos" in remastered 1080i HD.
HBO | HBO HD
HBO HD (originally called HBO HDTV from March 1999 until April 2006) is a high definition simulcast feed of HBO that broadcasts in the 1080i resolution format. HBO maintains high definition simulcast feeds of its main channel and all six multiplex channels. HBO HD is available on all major cable television providers including, among others, Charter Communications (including systems once owned by former HBO sister company Time Warner Cable); Comcast Xfinity (which, in 2016, began downconverting HBO, Cinemax and other cable channels transmitting in 1080i to 720p60); Cox Communications and Optimum; as well as DirecTV; AT&T U-verse; and Verizon FiOS.
HBO | HBO HD
The HBO multiplex channel was launched as "HBO Canada" on October 30, 2008 as a joint venture between the regional Canadian pay TV services The Movie Network (now Crave) and Movie Central (now defunct). Prior to that date, both services had regularly featured HBO programming on their other channels, however some programs had aired on (or were later syndicated to) other broadcast or basic cable channels. Beginning in 2013, most Canadian rights to HBO programming have been consolidated under Bell Media. Bell acquired TMN's parent company in 2013, licensed streaming rights to the HBO back-catalog in 2014, and purchased the distribution rights and subscriber base of Movie Central (which were then assumed by TMN/Crave), as well as additional HBO programming rights, in 2015-16.
List of HBO international channels | Canada
HBO temporarily fed its domestic Eastern and Pacific feeds to Westar 1 for the first four months of satellite transmissions; the network's transmissions shifted to Satcom 1 when full-time commercial service began on February 28, 1976. The network's programming expanded with the switch to satellite transmission, operating daily from 1:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. ET/PT in an extension of its weekend schedule to weekdays. (HBO's broadcast schedule was reduced by 20 hours per week—reverting to sign-on times of 5:30 p.m. ET/PT weekdays and, with adjustments for sports events, 3:00 p.m. ET/PT on weekends—on October 11, 1976, citing low afternoon viewership and a lack of G- and PG-rated films in its inventory to fill the schedule.) Through the use of satellite, the network began transmitting separate programming feeds for the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones, allowing the same programs that are first broadcast in the eastern half of the United States to air at accordant times in the western part of the country.
HBO | National expansion, innovation and rise to prominence (1975–1993)
HBOS plc was a banking and insurance company in the United Kingdom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lloyds Banking Group, having been taken over in January 2009. It was the holding company for Bank of Scotland plc, which operated the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands in the UK, as well as HBOS Australia and HBOS Insurance & Investment Group Limited, the group's insurance division. HBOS was formed by the 2001 merger of Halifax plc and the Bank of Scotland. The formation of HBOS was heralded as creating a fifth force in British banking as it created a company of comparable size and stature to the established "Big Four" UK retail banks.
HBOS | Introduction
On December 19, 2019, OWN renewed the series for a second season. On June 29, 2020, HBO Max acquired the streaming rights for the series which was debuted on July 16, 2020.
David Makes Man | Development
The free preview concept was originated in the early 1970s by Home Box Office (HBO). By 1973, within a year of its November 1972 launch, HBO was carried on 14 cable systems around the country, located in New York and Pennsylvania. The channel had an exceptionally high churn rate as subscribers would sample the service for a few weeks, eventually become tired of seeing the same films being repeated over and over, and then ultimately cancel their subscriptions. Realizing the struggles it was facing because of this, HBO partnered with a cable system in Lawrence, Massachusetts to allow subscribers to view the service's programming for free on channel 3.
Free preview | History
For TMN subscribers, HBO Canada replaced MMore and MMore HD, while for Movie Central subscribers, HBO Canada replaced Movie Central 4 and Movie Central 1 HD. As different multiplex channels of a single pay service cannot have separate sets of owners, Astral and Corus each held "de jure" full ownership of HBO Canada in the designated service areas of their respectively owned pay services. However, in practice, the channel was jointly managed by both companies and the HBO Canada schedule was common to both services, except that TMN's feed of the channel operated on an Eastern Time Zone schedule while Movie Central fed the same programming two hours later on Mountain Time.
HBO (Canadian TV channel) | Background and launch
WarnerMedia distributes the following channels: Owned by A+E Networks Latin America (owned by A+E Networks and Ole Communications): NBCUniversal International Networks Latin America:
HBO Latin America Group | Distributed channels
HBO Asia was originally co-owned by UIP Pay TV, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner and SingTel. Based in Singapore, it launched in 1993 and initially served only the Philippines and Thailand. HBO Asia expanded to incorporate feeds in Mandarin Chinese, Thai and Bahasa, encompassing 23 countries across Asia.
List of HBO international channels | Southeast Asia
From 1990 to 1995, Albrecht was President of HBO Independent Productions and oversaw development and production of comedy series for distribution on HBO and the networks, including "Martin" and "Everybody Loves Raymond". Under his leadership, HBO became the leader in innovative entertainment and sports programming with critically acclaimed series like "Sex and the City", "The Sopranos", "Six Feet Under", "Deadwood", "Band of Brothers", "The Wire" and "Entourage" among many others. In September 2007, Albrecht signed a three-year deal with IMG in September to serve as head of IMG Global Media and a special limited partner in Forstmann Little & Company, the private equity firm headed by Ted Forstmann that owns IMG.
Chris Albrecht | Career
A&E was formed from the merger of the Alpha Repertory Television Service and the Entertainment Channel, a premium cable channel, in 1984 with their respective owners keeping stakes in the new company. Thus A&E's shareholders were Hearst and ABC (from ARTS) and Radio City Music Hall (Rockefeller Group) and RCA, then the parent of NBC (from Entertainment Channel). The company launched Arts & Entertainment Network, a cultural cable channel, on February 1, 1984. In 1990, after having aired episodes of its original 1960's version starting in 1987, A&E acquired rights to, and started producing new episodes of, the documentary series "Biography"— which became the channel's flagship program.
A&amp;E Networks | History
On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced an offer to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion, including debt it would assume from the latter; the merger would bring Time Warner's various media properties, including HBO and Cinemax, under the same corporate umbrella as AT&T's telecommunications holdings, including satellite provider DirecTV and IPTV/broadband provider AT&T U-verse. Time Warner shareholders approved the merger on February 15, 2017. On November 20, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Time Warner in an attempt to block the merger, citing antitrust concerns surrounding the transaction. U.S. clearance of the proposed merger—which had already received approval from European, Mexican, Chilean and Brazilian regulatory authorities—was affirmed by court ruling on June 12, 2018, after District of Columbia U.S.
History of HBO | AT&T ownership (2016–present)
first-run rights in 2016), which continues to air in Canada on Treehouse TV and in second-run on American PBS stations; "Vice News Tonight", which was picked up in fall 2017 but was later dropped for unknown reasons prior to its U.S. cancellation; Spanish language programming such as "Los Espookys"; and certain HBO Sports programs including "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" and the NFL Films co-production "Hard Knocks". Some of these exclusions may be due to issues involving production partners or other rightsholders that may retain international distribution rights. From time to time the channel has aired acquired programs which air on other U.S.
HBO (Canadian TV channel) | Acquired programming
HBO broadcasts sports-related magazine and documentary series produced by HBO Sports, an in-house production division managed by WarnerMedia News & Sports (previously through Time Warner Sports from 1990 to 2018) that also produced selected sports event telecasts for the channel from its November 1972 launch until December 2018. HBO Sports has been headed by several well-known television executives over the years, including its founder Steve Powell (later head of programming at ESPN), Dave Meister (later head of the Tennis Channel), Seth Abraham (later head of MSG Network), and Ross Greenburg.
HBO | Sports programming
The company was established in 1983 as Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. after Viacom and Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment (now ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks) merged their premium channels, Showtime and The Movie Channel respectively, into one division. In 1984, American Express sold their interest in Warner-Amex to Warner Communications (now WarnerMedia) making Warner the new half-owner of Showtime/TMC. In 1985, Warner sold its half-interest to Viacom, making the company a wholly owned subsidiary of Viacom. 1985 also saw the pay-per-view service Viewer's Choice become part of the operation; it merged with rival PPV service Home Premiere Television in 1988, and Viacom ceded control to the cable companies that owned HPT (Viacom still held a stake until the 1990s).
Showtime Networks | Overview
Home Box Office launched at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on November 8, 1972. The service's inaugural program and event telecast, a National Hockey League (NHL) game between the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks from Madison Square Garden (part of a long-term agreement to broadcast sports events based at the Manhattan arena), was transmitted that evening over channel 21—its original assigned channel on the Teleservice system—to its initial base of 365 subscribers in Wilkes-Barre. (A plaque commemorating the launch event is located at Public Square in downtown Wilkes-Barre, established in honor of Service Electric's April 1984 addition of HBO sister channel Cinemax to its lineup.
History of HBO | Launch and expansion as a regional service (1972–1975)