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Another Step Toward A La Carte TV? HBO Considers Cable-Free Option

Mar. 22, 2013 8:38pm Liz Klimas

HBO Considers Streaming Service Without Cable Package Through Internet Partners

HBO’s current CEO Richard Plepler, left, pictured in 2009. (Photo: /Matt Sayles)

HBO is often thought of one of the more premium cable TV subscription options. But as the market increasingly begins to roll out streaming options for shows and entertainment that are not tied to a cable package, HBO too is considering opening its service to people without a cable subscription.

Speaking with Reuters Thursday, CEO Richard Plepler said the company’s HBO Go streaming service could be coupled with broadband Internet partners. As of right now HBO Go can only be accessed by those who are subscribed to HBO on cable TV as well.

Here’s more from Reuters on how Plepler described the potential program:

Plepler said late Wednesday that HBO GO could be packaged with a monthly Internet service, in partnership with broadband providers, reducing the cost.

Customers could pay $50 a month for their broadband Internet and an extra $10 or $15 for HBO to be packaged in with that service, for a total of $60 or $65 per month, Plepler explained.

“We would have to make the math work,” he added.

CNET’s Don Reisinger noted that although it seems it is unlikely such a service will be available in the near future, it’s “an interesting idea” none the less.

It also coincides with the growth of interest TheBlaze has reported about in the past regarding the increasing popularity of unbundled TV, which many think would allow customers to pick and choose the shows they actually want to watch.

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(H/T: Reddit)

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Comments (56)

Salamander
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 10:59pm
What we need is ‘a la carte’ cable! I am really pissed that Comcast FORCES me to buy a package that I don’t want, omits channels that I DO want (available in a more expensive package with more junk I don’t want), and then SKIMS some of my hard-earned money off to Al Jazerah! I am SO STEAMED! THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO DO THIS! IT IS FRAUD! I DO NOT WISH TO SUPPORT AN ORGANIZATION THAT I BELIEVE IS SUBVERSIVE to the best interests of MY COUNTRY!

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- loriann12
  Posted on March 24, 2013 at 9:14am
  What they would do, if they went a la carte, is track which channels most people bought together, then claim it didn’t work, then they’d pick the top 16 channels and offer 15 in a package deal. You’d have to go up one package to get that favorite channel that wasn’t in the first package or miss out.
  
  Report this comment
- azitdad
  Posted on March 25, 2013 at 11:58am
  I always get accosted by the Dish Network guys at Best Buy and Walmart. They seem desperate to make a sale. I usually igonre them, but last time I gave the guy an earful about how awful the programming is, how even the commercials insult my intelligence, and how much better it is for my kids to watch Netflix, and if we want local news we just switch over to the antenna, which is in HD. The kid just looked at me and said, “Have a nice day.”
  
  I save myself $1200.00 every year and a load of insults. My kids don’t miss out on anything.
  
  Report this comment
CommonSenseTalk
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 6:11pm
HBO can have some good shows once in a while but their politics are so far left and so out there I want it out of my Direct TV premium package.

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- Chuck Stein
  Posted on March 24, 2013 at 6:51pm
  I agree 100%, but this IS good news. If every content provider went this way, the whole game will have changed for choice for consumers and accountability for the content providers.
  
  Report this comment
cknapp
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 3:41pm
The only thing I cannot figure out how to get on the Internet is Fox News and I would pay a monthly fee to get it on the Internet…and perhaps Showtime to get Dexter.

I now watch most Tv shows via the Internet on tv.com., create a free account if you like, build a “favorites” list by entering your favorite shows, when you click on a show to watch you are presented with options such as being taken to CBS, NBC etc., or Hulu, or Amazon/iTunes (must watch most prime-time network shows within 2-3 weeks to get them free).

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- TONY BOLOGNA
  Posted on March 24, 2013 at 5:17am
  So you would pay a premium price to be able to watch Fox cable-TV news? Wow, why would you broadcast to millions of potential viewers of the internet that you are so ignorant and stupid? You do realize that Fox “news” is not really news at all, it is just the trivial opinions of its employees that read from a teleprompter in front of a camera? Do you not know this? And if they are talking without the teleprompter and really spewing forth their opinions, then it is very hilarious but hardly “news”.
- matinva
  Posted on March 24, 2013 at 8:28am
  Yeah, ok, Tony, we know you’re an Owebama weenie sucker. Let it go.
  
  Report this comment
Okieracing
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 2:40pm
What I think that would be nice. If I was able to go to my cable company and for a price of say $20 a month I could pick any 10 channels I wanted. It wouldn’t matter what 10 channels they were. It could be sports, news, kids or regular tv channel. Then say for $30 I could get 20 channels. I think that would be so much better. Right now I have like 120 channels available pulse music channels and I know I don’t watch a least 100 of them. As for the music I use Pandora though my Blu ray player.

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- Salamander
  Posted on March 23, 2013 at 11:02pm
  How about a class-action refund for all the money they funnel to al-Jazerah?
  
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Seagal45
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 1:59pm
I would love to be able to pick what channels I get through Dish. I watch about 10 channels out of the 250 I’m signed up for and about to dump them and pay per episode through Roku for the few that I do watch. I can get my local channels with an antenna. You couldn’t pay me to watch hobo, they have garbage programming.

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- SweetBabyHades
  Posted on March 23, 2013 at 3:11pm
  Go for the Roku! I got one, can’t recommend it enough. Great selection of channels, and you only pay for what you want. However, I must disagree with you about HBO, only because of Game of Thrones.
  
  Report this comment
lessoneleg
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 12:00pm
Aren’t you people offended by Netflix and Crackle dumping all this Bollywood garbage onto your streaming world of junk.
Holy Cow, if it wasn’t one month they had humungous amounts of George Carlin now it’s Bollywood in Plethera.
Unbelievable! Just junk. I’d fire the Programming Director of Netflix or Crackle for the garbage they are putting up on the App streaming. Like absolute trash….

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lessoneleg
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 11:56am
I really wish Cable/Satellite providers would just offer a massive list of channels. As a purchaser I choose exactly what I want from the list they provide according to the limit selection I only wish to pay for.
For example, 200 channels, no bundles at all. Choose 200 or 100 Channels and thats it. Cherry pick your way through.
I think most of us have gone through our Kids Programming part of our lives and those fifty channels of Children’s Programming is behind us and we’d like to dump the iCarly and Treehouse and maybe choose to watch other Channels without extra costs.
Hey, cable/satellite companies, stop with the duplication bundle packages and useless junk you stuff down our throats. Just give us what we want. We are still paying but not for your junk.

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- comsense08
  Posted on March 24, 2013 at 5:38pm
  It’s because your monthly bill is subsidising all those other stupid networks that wouldn’t stand a chance if it had to stand on it’s own. pretty much like NPR in the radio world. Without governement support it would be history. There is no free market taking place in cable companies, that’s for sure, and they know it. They know which shows are bing watched and which ones aren’t but drop the losers?……. no way.
  
  Report this comment
Bamabelle
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 10:13am
Comcast priced me right out of their business. I am now happy with hulu plus, netflix and just regular internet services. If HBO were to offer HBO go for say $20-25 a month to make up not being with a broadband service I would jump on it. At least while they are running True Blood and Game of Thrones. They can take the rest of their programming and shove it..lol.

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- edcoil
  Posted on March 23, 2013 at 10:33am
  I just cancelled my HBO today. It was $20.00 a month for old movies.
  
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- TONY BOLOGNA
  Posted on March 24, 2013 at 5:26am
  And where exactly would you like the remainder of the HBO programing to be shoved? I have a suggestion or two but since it’s Sunday, I’ll keep it to myself but I think you get my drift if you know what I mean! If you were really the intelligent person you acclaim to be from your remark then you would not be watching such drivel as True Blood and Game of Thrones, whatever the hell they are!!! Instead you would be doing some learning from these here things called books! Now I know that this here thing called reading books is generally something that is despised by conservative republicans but heck, it needs to start sometime and somewhere, might as well start now…
  
  Report this comment
- Stoic one
  Posted on March 24, 2013 at 1:31pm
  Tony, the conservatives I know have rooms called Libraries in their very own homes! Most liberals I know are too busy getting high and cannot read .
  
  Report this comment
G-WHIZ
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 9:34am
HBO started out as a [private-UHF] subscription-service, where each person had a small dish and receiver aiming towards their antenna-array. It was a 240-line-extra-high resolution picture and stereo. One could see every little pore on faces…every leaf on trees…etc. and breathtaking scenery in the movies and specials!! It was better-grade than live-camera normal tv! I could even see Len O’Conner move his lips(maybe)! (inside joke/Chicago, Il.)

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- HOOT_OWL
  Posted on March 23, 2013 at 10:04am
  “One could see every little pore on faces”
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
  Now, I blind person can see what a liberal propaganda spewing outlet it
  has become.
  
  Report this comment
blanco5
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 9:21am
Direct tv rep seemed a little miffed when I was offered a free month of HBO and said that it had nothing but leftist slanted crap on it. A la carte would be wonderful but you KNOW the leftys will fight it b/c they will go out of busiiness!

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jessieH
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 9:18am
You couldn’t pay me to watch HBO.

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rqfreedom
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 9:16am
Sovereignsoul, your statement is true about advertising, so what, then, is the $120/month for? We pay that PLUS put up with the relentless commercials. And NPR/PBS puts on the commercials, plus donations, plus TAXPAYER money. Cut them off. At least with my radio or my antenna TV, I have the choice of whether to buy the product or not. If I do, it’s not because of some distorted commercial. It’s because I want the product and feel it’s worth the price.

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BSGFan
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 6:38am
About 9 Months ago I dropped my Comcast service because of iTunes. I am not a fan of Apple as a company (I think the people there appear to be a bunch of snobs), but I really like their products. I have an Apple TV and found that the few shows I watched every week, were uploaded to iTunes the next day. I was paying Comcast about $120/month for HBO, Fox News, and about 6 or 7 TV shows on other networks. With iTunes, I could purchase season passes for about $35/show for the 6 or 7 shows for around $250 – a one time only charge that gets me the entire season of episodes I can watch, anytime, anywhere, no commercials. I don’t miss out on Fox News either because Sprint offers it on my phone for an extra $10/month. HBO (and sometimes Showtime) is the only thing I miss, but their shows get uploaded too, just not for about a year. But considering I was paying Comcast $1440/year for a bunch of stuff I don’t want and now pay directly for those things I do totaling about $600/year when you add in the Blaze subscription and the shows on HBO once they get added – I think a savings of $840/year is worth it. If HBO did add service for internet subscribers, I would do it. I still would save $720/year and not pay for MSNBC or RT. I hope Fox News considers this option too. I would gladly pay that as well so I wouldn’t have to watch it on my cell phone screen all the time.

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PlanetReality
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 6:11am
I cancelled h b o with a cable subscription good luck getting people to pay without?

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betterpart
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 5:19am
HBO is one the worst around since their inception. Termintaed their service twice.

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Frederick_Douglass_Republican
Posted on March 23, 2013 at 12:42am
It won’t be long after The Bible series on History that I will make my final call to Time Warner to tell them that I am cancelling. I’ll get a high speed internet service elsewhere and use Roku. When the a la carte tv becomes available it will be the final nail in the coffin for msnbc nbc cbs cnn and the rest. Their ratings will pale so badly in comparison to The Blaze their sponsors will have no choice. Of course thats why they are digging their heels in against The Blaze. They will fail. Its a Caterpillar D11 bulldozer vs the progressive elitist ant hill.

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Hmschlmom
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 10:31pm
Crossing my fingers that DISCOVERY & NAT GEO do the same! (ZERO interest in HBO)

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- drs1969
  Posted on March 22, 2013 at 11:35pm
  Don’t hold your breath. Most all of the channels are owned by the same companies and are distributed by an even smaller handful of companies. It’s a virtual monopoly. I used to use a Big satellite dish. Used it from the 80′s till around 7 years ago. All the programming became monopolized and too expensive. I used to be able to buy individual channels like Disc. and Nat. Geo. for $10 a Year. Maybe, when people cancel their cable, these companies will be forced to chase. With the internet, I don’t care what they charge, anymore. I’m not buying.
  
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Small World
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 10:19pm
Little off topic but just read that Comcast will no longer have any gun or ammo ads.

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Hyperion5182
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 9:34pm
The ability to get Game of Thrones without having to pay the upcharge on my cable bill? Oh that’d be a success and they know it. HBO has incredible shows and if the price was right it’d derail the piracy problem. 30 bucks+tax is just far too much for most people on the cable bill.

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DEFCON4
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 9:18pm
HBO should also try a Bill Maher-free option.

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- SweetBabyHades
  Posted on March 23, 2013 at 3:17pm
  Yes! I have no idea with that repulsive creature still has a show! Even with the good stuff on HBO, knowing you’re paying his salary with a subscription is enough to make anyone consider the morality of paying for it.
  
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CapnCrumbles32
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 9:08pm
Wait, if I choose my own media “a la carte” how will progressive/leftists be able to indoctrinate me? Further more what will happen to guttertainment, and the lamestream media that most people simply stumble upon because there is nothing else on and they are bored?

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- justasurvivor
  Posted on March 22, 2013 at 9:24pm
  Listening to TheBlaze and searching the information is free rehab for all the lies and indoctrination. Soon we don’t even miss the left!
  
  Report this comment
- Al J Zira
  Posted on March 22, 2013 at 9:27pm
  Wait, if I choose my own media “a la carte” how will progressive/leftists be able to indoctrinate me?
  
  By ramming the Fairness Doctrine through congress. Then you would have to be subjected to equal parts of left and right opinion on whatever channel you choose. Even though the left has tried to make a go of it on radio and failed miserably, i.e. Air America for one, it doesn’t stop them from trying to force their views on Americans. Even if they don’t want to hear them.
  
  Report this comment
- drs1969
  Posted on March 22, 2013 at 11:38pm
  Monopoly ownership emanating from NYC. Same **** on all their channels. I’m happy we now have digital TV. I watch better reruns on free air than they play on cable’s TVLand.
  
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justasurvivor
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 8:56pm
I am so so so SO ready to just pay for the stations I watch, rather than also have to pay for all the trash. I pretty much only watch 5 networks. I resent all the stuff I pay for and never use. Capitalism – come on!

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- drs1969
  Posted on March 22, 2013 at 11:49pm
  Don’t bother complaining to the FCC. I did this when Dish Network bought up all their competing programmers and started (monopolizing) cramming all the channels together. They are there to protect the interests. The only thing individuals can do is cut their cable.
  DISH bought out my programmer and started to try selling me package deals full of channels I never wanted for ‘ump teen’ times the price I was paying ‘A la carte’. I never bought. They can keep it all, before I’m going to be forced into buying, and supporting **** like Bill Mayer. Even if you don’t subscribe to HBO, you probably do subscribe to another channel owned by the parent, so you’re still supporting that evil bastard.
  
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Rayblue
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 8:54pm
Remember antennas ? Free TV ? I love my little transistor radios. Ancient reminders of a less money grubbing age. Slowly we’ve been sold a bill.
To someone like me it’s been progress with a derision for anything done easily and cheaply.

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- SovereignSoul
  Posted on March 22, 2013 at 9:12pm
  TV was never free, they just did a better job of hiding the math.
  
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- Rayblue
  Posted on March 22, 2013 at 9:58pm
  You paid the electric bill. You bought a TV. You installed an antenna. You turned on the set.
  Where is the complicated hidden math ?
  Radio still works through the air. Did I miss something ?
  
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- SovereignSoul
  Posted on March 23, 2013 at 1:12am
  Television stations broadcast programming. They pay for that programming by selling commercial advertisements to companies. Companies factor the cost of said advertising into the retail cost of their product. When you buy that product, part of the price you pay covers the advertising that pays for the television programming you’re watching, I.e. you are paying for the program every time you visit the grocery store, buy a car, etc.
  The cost of everything ALWAYS come back to the consumer.
  
  Report this comment
- azitdad
  Posted on March 25, 2013 at 12:01pm
  We switched to an antenna four years ago and haven’t missed out on anything, except $1200.00 per year. My kids know how to navigate Netflix on the TV, the tablet, and our cell phones. Most of the programming on TV is garbage anyway, AND you can usually to see your favorite show on the networks website the next day anyway.
  
  Report this comment
CatB
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 8:44pm
They would be smart to have a service on ROKU for those who don’t have cable .. or don’t want to pay the big bucks .. a cheaper option. I don’t really like HBO .. trash .. but some might buy it.

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- Hyperion5182
  Posted on March 22, 2013 at 9:37pm
  Game of Thrones? Boardwalk Empire? solid movies? Their DVD sales show that people WANT these shows. But its 30+ to put that thing on your cable package. That’s just BAD especially when tax is factored in. 5-15 bucks a month to access the shows people demand? Piracy for their shows would PLUMMET.
  
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The-Monk
Posted on March 22, 2013 at 8:43pm
What’s HBO?

Looks like they are trying to follow in Glenn Becks direction. Going live on the Internet.

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