HBO Won't Shut Up and Take My Money

Netflix CEO says their "goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us."   Well, personally, I'm hoping they succeed... especially in the realm of original series. Mostly because I want to see HBO lose. I want to see them wither and crumble.

HBO has always had phenomenal original series because they can take risks and make shows that will captivate, entertain, and push the limits with worrying about ratings and sponsors and viewer demographics and selling ad-time... which are huge factors that network shows have to constantly consider.

But HBO has failed to adapt to the evolving and rapidly growing digital world. No, worse than that: they have straight out *refused* to adapt. Want to watch one of their series? Get an HBO cable subscription. Or wait until it's out on DVD/Bluray and buy it. HBO series' aren't even available for purchase on iTunes. HBO's series aren't even available for purchase on iTunes.

Now, while they DO have a "streaming" service, HBO Go, it is a joke. Because not only must you already have a standard HBO cable subscription but it costs an addition $10/month! But the CEO of HBO was asked when, given the growing trend of people "cable-cutting" (ditching cable subscriptions and relying on services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Instant Video services), if/when HBO Go will be made to non-cable subscribers, he replied that cable-cutting isn't a "real thing," and that the number of people ditching cable in favor of streaming isn't significant and it won't catch on.

Yet, year after year, the most pirated and torrented shows are HBO series. HBO shows are some of the most-watched shows in the world... but the majority of those viewers pirated it to watch it.  Why? Largely because HBO cable subscriptions aren't even available in a lot of countries, but the people in those countries still know good television when they see it. With literally no legal means to watch it, the only option remaining is to pirate it. But in the US? It's because HBO won't provide convenient and legitimate methods of distribution. It's the same phenomenon that the music industry went through: people wanted digital music, they wanted single tracks, they wanted it quickly and simply. No legitimate method existed, so they pirated. Fast forward to iTune, Spotify, Last.fm, etc., and music piracy is way way way down. Why? Because now it's easier for people to get their music legitimately than it is to go through the hassle of pirating it. 

The only possible reason that I can conceive of for HBO refusing to embrace digital distribution is that they believe doing so would lead to a loss of their cable subscriptions. They must believe if people could purchase the shows on iTunes or use HBO Go without a subscription, people will have no reason to keep their cable subscription so they'll cancel it and their revenue will drop. That must be the reasoning they are using in order to justify it, because there is no other explanation why they should not. If they didn't believe this was true, then what disadvantage would they have from selling their shows on iTunes or allowing non-HBO-subscribing people from subscribing to HBO Go at a higher price than HBO-subscribers? HBO Go is proof that they clearly already have the means and capability to provide streaming content on a plethora of devices and platforms.

Just like the music industry, HBO is afraid. They are afraid to break their current distribution model. This is the model they know and have always known, and it is scary--as a company and especially as a CEO--to decide to break that format and venture into new waters. So, instead, HBO will play it the way they see "safe" and do nothing. Eventually this will catch up with them, though... especially if Netflix becomes a formidable rival when it comes to original series. They will find themselves with slowing growth and slowing profits and that will turn into falling growth and falling profits. At this point, they may decide to go the RIAA route and start suing people that are pirating their shows... and, just like the RIAA discovered, this will do more harm than good. It will be negative publicity and harm their corporate image, especially once 80 year grandmothers that don't even own a computer inevitably get slapped with lawsuits... just like what happened with the RIAA. They will discover that you can't intimidate consumers into buying (or in this case, subscribing) your product instead of pirating it because they would rather just not have it at all. Most people who pirate don't do it because they don't want to pay for it, they do it because it is easier. 

So once lawsuits and intimidation fails to revive their bottom line, they will either be forced to adapt in order to survive, just as the music industry was forced to do, or they'll be stubborn, keep the current business model but think they can revive their numbers with some new shows or lower subscription costs or some other crap that may appear to work in the short-term but ultimately fail, fail, fail. The creative talent that HBO once housed for their original series will see brighter futures, welcoming arms, and a younger, more modern, and wider audience at places like Netflix... a company that helped to shape the way people can consume media and entertainment instead of dismiss it and shun it.

Screw you, HBO, because you won't shut up and take my money.