LOS ANGELES (AP) — HBO’s “Game of Thrones” has the dubious honor of being popular with both pirates and viewers. After its fifth season began Sunday, users of a Twitter-owned […]
HBO’s fantasy drama Game of Thrones continues to build its popularity, at least judging by Twitter activity. Sunday’s season-five premiere of Thrones generated a unique Twitter audience of 5.98 million, according to Nielsen Social, or the number of accounts that saw at least one tweet about the episode. That was up 33% from the same night last year, when Thrones had a Twitter audience of 4.51 million. The show was also up slightly year-to-year in total tweets, rising 6% from 250,000 to 265,000.
HBO has restocked its content cupboard with hits; launched HBO Now, its stand-alone streaming service; and appears to be taking a victory lap.
Exclusives
The deals were a long time coming considering that Dish Network and Turner Broadcasting ended a month-long blackout of the programmer’s channels in November. Following temporary extensions of the carriage pacts that expired last year, the companies said today that Dish will continue to offer Time Warner’s Turner channels and HBO via “separate distribution agreements” that involve “multiple platforms.”
This is the second shoe to drop from the announcement today about Dish Network’s carriage agreements with Turner and HBO. The satellite company says that its $20 a month Sling TV streaming service will also offer HBO for an additional $15 beginning before April 12, when the new season of Game Of Thrones premieres.
HBO-Vice Deal Should Scare TV News
The expanded pact announced last week between the two companies would have been impressive in its own right were it just contained to their existing weekly series and a whole new channel to be launched as part of the pay cabler’s new a la carte service, HBO Now. But the doozy of this deal with a new-media dynamo is a decidedly old-media move: creating a daily TV newscast on HBO’s linear channel. While details are sparse, it’s hard not to interpret this move as an invasion into one of TV’s most sacred wheelhouses: the evening newscast.
HBO and Vice Media will expand their news content programming in a new four-year deal that includes the addition of a daily Vice newscast on the pay cable outlet. Vice also will produce 32 long-form specials for HBO over the next four years, the network said.
The nation buzzed about the Sunday finale of the HBO documentary series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst as if it was the shocking twist of a Shonda Rhimes drama series or a marriage proposal gone wrong on The Bachelor.
Robert Durst, a wealthy eccentric linked to two killings and his wife’s disappearance, was arrested on a murder warrant just before Sunday evening’s showing of HBO’s serial documentary The Jinx about his links to three sensational killings.
Apple and HBO announced a deal today. Starting in early April, the $14.99 monthly service HBO Now will let users stream HBO movies and TV shows on iPads, iPhones and Apple TV — without having to sign up for a cable subscription at all. This is the first time that HBO is allowing for standalone service.
NEW YORK (AP) — HBO says it has picked up two more seasons of John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight,” which puts to rest any thought that Oliver would return to […]
NEW YORK (AP) — John Oliver says that he’s hired three new researchers to help with what has become his HBO show’s signature, a long-form take on a newsy subject […]
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) – “Game of Thrones” addicts, begin the countdown: HBO’s series is returning in April. The cable channel said Thursday that 10 episodes of “Game of Thrones” will […]
HBO is making a statement with a policy shift as of Jan. 1 to issue only ratings from Nielsen’s Live Plus 7 measure. That means no more next-day ratings report on HBO shows, at least not from HBO itself. The Live Plus Same Day numbers will still be available through Nielsen, and HBO’s competitors, but the pay cable giant aims to send a message about the growing importance of evaluating a show’s performance aafter viewers have had a week to catch up with a program on various platforms.
NEW YORK (AP) — Lisa Kudrow has no problem slipping in and out of her character Valerie Cherish when talking about the return HBO’s “The Comeback”. (The series follows Cherish, […]
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Time Warner Inc.’s HBO is exploring various routes to offer consumers a stand-alone streaming video service, including as an add-on to broadband packages or through technology partners such as Apple TV, Microsoft’s Xbox, Roku and others, according to people familiar with the matter. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.
Time Warner Inc.’s HBO is eliminating more than 150 positions, according to a person with knowledge of the plans, joining the job cuts taking place across the company to improve profitability.
Burke’s Surprise At HBO, CBS Is Surprising
NBCU CEO Steve Burke’s statement that he was surprised at the moves by HBO and CBS to offer streaming services is a bit surprising for a few reasons, one being that neither service came completely out of left field. And contrary to Burke, HBO and CBS aren’t likely to cannabalize their cable revenue or find the online distribution business particularly tough.
Why Nets Are Suddenly Ready To Unbundle
Not so long ago, people argued that HBO wasn’t going to unbundle anytime soon, or ever. So what changed?
HBO, CBS Moves: A La Carte Tipping Point?
The two announcements of online streaming services look to be a big step toward allowing consumers to choose some or all of their TV channels, rather than having fat program bundles forced on them by pay TV providers.
HBO Chairman-CEO Richard Plepler just confirmed what had been in the wind for some time: In 2015 a stand-alone over-the-top HBO Go service will launch in the the U.S. There are 80 million homes that do not have HBO, and “we will use all measures to go after them,” Plepler said during his network’s portion of the Time Warner Investor Day underway in New York. He said such a move could produce hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue.
Should HBO Open A News Division?
Has the Time Warner service become an inadvertent champion of the emerging “slow journalism” movement? “I think you’ll see more from us,” says programming chief Michael Lombardo.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn will star in the second season of HBO’s “True Detective.” The eight-episode drama series will begin production in California this fall, […]
