HBO cuts the cord, brings streaming-only service to Europe

[untog]

As someone from the UK (who now lives in the US) I look forward to the reversal of roles when US techies are forced to search out proxy connections that allow them to watch online content.

Welcome to the club.

[marknutter]

A lot of us had to do that with the Olympics already.

[drstewart]

As opposed to now, when the US can watch BBC for free?

[slurgfest]

Why do you want something unpleasant for people who weren't responsible for your own unpleasant experiences?

[mikeash]

It's not exactly a new phenomenon. In addition to obvious British stuff like Sherlock and The IT Crowd, I also resorted to underhanded techniques to watch the first season of the remade Battlestar Galactica series, as it was released in the UK several months before the US.

[mmahemoff]

Happened with Spotify for a while.

[mbesto]

As an American living in the UK, I look forward to this as well.

ps- You can get NFL Gamepass (it's basically a web-streaming version of NFL Ticket) for $150/season if you have a UK IP address. Only problem is that it blacks out one of the games (whichever Sky sports is covering) but otherwise HD streaming video and can switch to every game live. It's a sportsman dream.

[_b8r0]

I look forward to paying for this without having to pay for VPN service to Denmark as well to watch it.

[ImprovedSilence]

We've been there for awhile. A la Top Gear.

[bgentry]

Wow. I have to admit that I didn't expect to see anything like this from them for at least a couple more years.

We'll see how long it takes to bring it to the US though. I'd guess that their cable co ties are too strong here to do it anytime soon.

[jonursenbach]

They might also be using them as a test market and if successful, will look into bringing it over the US. I hope so.

[j_baker]

I think the answer is probably "as soon as people stop giving money to cable cos for HBO".

[001sky]

This might also be a technical reaearch project. test the weapons that are avail, etc. Go back and improve, before the real war.

[pavel_lishin]

I wonder how long this has been in the works.

[incision]

Despite all the naysaying, I have a feeling this could show up in the US sooner than expected.

HBO GO is very good, surprisingly so. The quality of that effort in combination with moves like this suggest some very smart, visionary folks are at work there.

Anecdotally, I'm seeing rapidly growing interest in cord-cutting among non-technical folks.

As tablets and 4G phones proliferate I see people in general becoming increasingly frustrated with cable and desirous of having content when and where they want it.

[aaronbrethorst]

I only watch HBO through my Xbox and iPad (and hopefully someday my Apple TV). The experience is orders of magnitude better than dealing with Comcast's horrific set top box UI.

I can't wait until I can switch over entirely...

[e28eta]

Wasn't the CEO of HBO doing some naysaying of his own recently? I think I remember an article where he said cord cutting was (a myth, overblown, exaggerated, ???)

Maybe he was just offering a little misdirection, but it didn't seem like it.

[tptacek]

If you have cable, HBO GO is free on your phone.

[jfb]

I imagine that their market penetration in Europe in so tiny that they can experiment with new models without pissing in too many people's Wheaties. Don't expect this in the US anytime soon.

[jinzo]

In Slovenia (small country in Central Europe - so quite far from the HBO Nord AB countries.) they're pretty known (and available everywhere - for money of-course). And the article is wrong - we got HBO Go some months ago too.

[gizzlon]

It's not so tiny here in Scandinavia. Most young people I know watch a HBO show or five. There where big Game of Thrones posters on the subway.

[stcredzero]

Paying more per-show, but only paying for the shows you want to watch, will likely encourage higher quality shows.

When you have, to steal some words from Pink Floyd, "500 channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from." Then the next channel of crap will always capture marginally more money, and will be profitable if costs are low enough. So what you get is in-your face lowest common denominator crap designed to draw the attention of bored channel surfers.

On the other hand, if shows need to generate buzz around the water cooler, such that people are proud to have discovered the show and announce to the world they're paying for it, the focus needs to be on quality.

[danso]

I love ArsTechnica too, but I think the link traffic should've gone to Variety mag:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118058484

[anonymouz]

I had already grabbed my wallet, but then I noticed that it will be restricted to a very few countries.

Oh well, back to Pirate Bay.

[fwr]

This is probably the first cool thing ever to appear in Poland before the rest of Europe.

[lambda]

Well, this looks like something that I'd be willing to pay for once it comes to the US. Not holding my breath, but it's definitely a good sign that it's coming to other markets.

[digeridoo]

Europe as in: the 4% of Europeans that live in Scandinavia.

[freyr]

The 4% that live beyond the Wall. The wildlings.

[codesuela]

Let's get a P2P network started. Americans get BBC and HBO, we get Hulu and Netflix

[antihero]

We already have one of those, except everyone gets everything.

[baddox]

If only there was already some P2P network that facilitates the illicit sharing of multimedia content.

[slurgfest]

If you cannot convince some American company to stream to you (which is a matter of that company's choices, not some sort of national content embargo) then why not create your own companies and your own content? Then you also have the option of exporting that service elsewhere, which would give you a competitive advantage over companies which only serve a domestic market.

[bartonfink]

Any ideas whether it would be feasible to get a proxy connection up to watch it in the U.S. via this?

[stackingcode]

You could try a VPN with iPredator.

https://www.ipredator.se/ https://www.ipredator.se/page/faq#other_stream

[sien]

While it appears there are not that many sports fans here it is worth noting that for sport this is already happening.

The NBA and others have started online subscriptions for their content. For people in places like Australia where cable subscriptions with good sport cost $100 / month it's well worth it.

Setanta, an Irish concern, has a streaming service that allows you to pay $17 a month or $100 a year for live sport much of which is soccer. I watch the Bundesliga using this service and it is excellent.

It's a shame that you can't get Ligue 1, Serie A, La Liga and the EPL this way. Yet.

[gtCameron]

I have the MLB package. They still restrict the content to appease the cable companies, you can only watch the games that are outside of your market. Works well if you like an out of town team, but if you want to watch the local team it's worthless.

[BryanB55]

Love it. I cancelled my Directv subscription last month for Hulu + Netflix. Haven't looked back. I'd like to see ShowTime go in this direction for US customers.

[wmeredith]

One more crack in the dam.

[vegardx]

I wonder when more services like this will be released in northern Europe. The legal systems are more or less identical on copyright and intellectual property, which should make it a lot easier? Combined, scandinavia covers around 20 million people and have one of the worlds highest purchasing power.

[sfall]

I hope for the US that HBO will make it an add-on for Hulu or Netflix, I really have enough streaming services.

[JanneVee]

Nice one, giving it to the nordic countries first means that they can reduce the number of high-bandwidth seeders for their content on Bittorrent. At the same time profit from it.

[tjtrapp]

i will cancel my TWC cable subscription in a millisecond once I can get NFL and HBO streamed to my house via my TWC internet connection. cable is so 1950s.