A milestone announcement today for HBO’s streaming platform. The new HBO GO app, available at the Amazon Appstore for Android, should significantly expand the number of HBO subscribers who’ll be able to use a mobile device to watch the premium channel’s 1,400 titles including original series such as The Sopranos, Sex And The City, and True Blood. It also suggests that it won’t be long before HBO GO will be ready for other Android tablets. Most cable systems make the service available on the iPad, iPhone, Android phones, Roku, Samsung smart TVs, and the XBox 360. “Kindle Fire owners already download and use apps and games frequently on their devices, and we expect that only to increase with the addition of HBO GO and all of its popular content.” says Aaron Rubenson, Director of the Amazon Appstore. Amazon boasts that the Kindle Fire is its most successful product launch. But the company has disclosed little hard sales data. Meanwhile Amazon’s recovering from a slap this week by ABI Research. The firm says that the Kindle Fire slipped to third place in Q1 tablet shipments. Apple’s iPad accounted for 65% of the 18.2M shipments, while Samsung moved into second place with 1.1M.


Hey HBO. It would be nice if you would just let me subscribe to the HBO Go service instead of paying my lame cable company. Open the flood gates and give us the opportunity to pay you directly, similar to Netflix Stereaming to enjoy all the great programming you have to offer. I would gladly give you $20 a month to have access to watch your programs. the problem with cable companies is that I have to pay $120+ a month to do that and with technology where it is today, we should of moved past the cable company.
I would go for this in a heartbeat, too.
HBO makes $4+ billion in revenue with the cable companies. It is going to need a lot more subscribers requesting that, before a standalone service is seriously considered.
The numbers don’t lie.
Great news for Kindle Fire owners (like myself). The Fire might have dropped to 3rd in sales last quarter, but the device has always been more about sales in the Amazon ecosystem (including products from the site, not just digital content), so it is hard to say that the sales drop means the products revenues are falling. I find it to be a great iPad alternative for those of us who can’t see spending $500 for a tablet.
Pay cable is dead. Online streaming + forced linear subscription is one of the few ways they’re re-arranging the deck chairs on their respective Titanic’s
And of course there will be no Time Warner Cable support.
What about Nook?!
I remember the days when you could have a basic cable subscription & get HBO as an add-on for $15. These days, you can’t get it unless you’ve got the most expensive plan your carrier offers as well as the $10 dollar a month box(es), so if you want to see any of HBO’s great in-house programming, the entry price is north of $100 a month, which is BS.
(And they wonder why so many people go the torrent route)
HBO needs to start thinking about how they can de-couple themselves from Comcast & Time Warner or they’ll wither and die along side the big cable companies.
Also, too, they need to bring HBOGO to other Android tablets, not just the Fire.