[13][14][15] With external expenses resulting in consistent financial losses, in the summer of 1971, while on a family vacation to France aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, a desperate Dolan—wanting to help Sterling Manhattan turn profitable and to prevent Time-Life, Inc. (then the book publishing unit of Time Inc.) from pulling its investment in the system—developed a proposal for a cable-originated television channel.

Codenamed "The Green Channel", the conceptual subscription service would offer unedited theatrical movies licensed from the major Hollywood film studios and live sporting events, all presented without interruptions by advertising and sold for a flat monthly fee to prospective subscribers.

[24] The first movie presentation shown on the service aired immediately after the hockey game concluded: the 1971 film Sometimes a Great Notion, starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.

Bob Zitter, then the network's Senior Vice President of Technology Operations, disclosed to Multichannel News in January 2001 that HBO elected to delay offering its original series in high definition until there was both sustainable consumer penetration of high-definition television sets and wide accessibility of HDTV equipment on the retail market.

VOD content from the network is also available on select virtual MVPD services (including DirecTV Stream, YouTube TV and Hulu), and through HBO's dedicated Roku video channel.

Content available on HBO Go, available on most operating systems, included theatrically released films (sourced from the network's pay television contractual windows for recent studio releases and from library content agreements with film distributors) and HBO original programming (including scripted series, made-for-cable movies, comedy specials, documentaries, and sports documentary and magazine programs).

)[100][101][102] The policy—which extended to films shown between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET/PT, when HBO began offering 24-hour programming on weekends in September 1981—may have once stemmed from HBO's pre-mid-2000s availability on analog cable tiers (whereas its multiplex channels generally require a digital cable subscription or at least scrambling), and, because of controversy surrounding daytime showings of R-rated films that began being scheduled on competing premium services as early as 1980, remained in place well after the V-chip became standard in newer television sets.

[103] From April 1979 to March 1987, rating bumpers preceding HBO telecasts of R-rated films included a special disclaimer indicating to viewers that the movie would air exclusively during the designated watershed period (“Home Box Office/HBO will show this feature only at night").

HBO offers between three and five preview events each year—normally scheduled to coincide with the premiere of a new or returning original series, and in the past, a high-profile special or feature film—to pay television providers for distribution on a voluntary participation basis.

During the "Executive Actions" symposium held by The Washington Post and George Washington University in April 2015 (shortly after the launch of the HBO Now streaming service), then-HBO CEO Richard Plepler said that he does not want the network to be akin to Netflix in which users "binge watch" its television shows and film content, saying "I don't think it would have been a great thing for HBO or our brand if that had been gobbled up in the first week[..] I think it was very exciting for the viewer to have that mystery held out for an extended period."

Feature films from the aforementioned studios that maintain joint licensing contracts encompassing both services will typically make their premium television debut on HBO approximately two to three months before their premiere on Cinemax and vice versa.

[130] During the early years of premium cable, the major American movie studios often sold the pay television rights to an individual theatrical film title to multiple "maxi-pay" and "mini-pay" services—often including HBO and later, Cinemax—resulting in frequent same-month scheduling duplication amongst the competing services.

Biondi's replacement, Michael J. Fuchs, structured some of the subsequent deals as non-exclusive to allow HBO to divert more funding toward co-producing made-for-cable movies, other original programming, and theatrical joint ventures (via Tri-Star and Silver Screen Partners).

)[155][156] In March 1995, HBO signed a ten-year deal with the then-upstart DreamWorks SKG valued at between $600 million and $1 billion, depending on the total output of films and generated revenue during the contract, covering the studio's tentative releases between January 1996 and December 2006.

[189][190][191] The network has cultivated a reputation for its stand-up comedy specials, which have helped raise the profile of established comedians (including George Carlin, Alan King, Rodney Dangerfield, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams) and served as the launchpad for emerging comic stars (such as Dennis Miller, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock, Roseanne Barr, Patton Oswalt, Margaret Cho and Dave Chappelle), many of whom have gone on to television and film careers.

At irregular intervals between 1986 and 2010, HBO served as the primary broadcaster of Comic Relief USA's fundraising specials to help health and welfare assistance programs focused on America's homeless population.

HBO attempted to negotiate the carriage of a weekly Thursday night MLB game package in 1976, but ultimately balked at the price being asked for by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

[223]) On June 25, 1999, HBO Sports announced it would not renew its share of the Wimbledon television contract after the conclusion of that year's tournament, ending its 25-year broadcast relationship with the Grand Slam event.

Its first boxing telecast, on January 22, 1973, was "The Sunshine Showdown", the world heavyweight championship bout from Kingston, Jamaica in which George Foreman defeated Joe Frazier in two rounds.

A second franchise extension, KO Nation (which ran from May 6, 2000, to August 11, 2001), attempted to incorporate hip-hop music performances between matches involving up-and-coming boxers to attract the show's target audience of males 18 to 24 (later broadened to ages 18 to 34) to the sport; former Yo!

[241][242] On September 27, 2018, HBO announced it would discontinue its boxing telecasts after 45 years, following its last televised match on October 27, marking the end of live sports on the network.

The documentary brought worldwide attention to the plight of child camel jockeys in the Middle East and helped the Ansar Burney Trust convince the governments of Qatar and the UAE to end the use of children in the sport.

Because of inadvertent consumer impressions of the name appearing as "HEO", as the 1975 design had the "O" obscure the "B"'s double-curve, marketing firm Bemis Balkind modified it into the current trimmer form; introduced in April 1980, it shifted the "O"—now attached to the “B”'s full double-curve—"an eighth of an inch" rightward, and slightly widened the spacing of the lettering and bullseye mark.

[citation needed] The logo would become widely recognized through a program opening sequence, often nicknamed "HBO in Space", produced in late 1981 by New York City-based production firm Liberty Studios and used in some capacity from September 20, 1982, to October 31, 1997.

After the camera pans skyward at the flight's end, a bursting "stargate" effect (made using two die-cut film slides) occurs, unveiling a chrome-plated, brass HBO logo that flies through a starfield.

(An extended pop rock version of the theme, alternately titled "Fantasy", was released as both instrumental and lyrical tracks on Smith's 1985 album "Music Made for Television".

[254]) Another well-known HBO program opener, designed by Pacific Data Images in conjunction with the network and commonly nicknamed "Neon Lights", began non-prime-time movie presentations [citation needed]from November 1, 1986, to October 31, 1997.

The sequence, set to a synth and electric guitar theme, begins with a rotation shot of a heliotrope HBO logo on a film strip as blue, green, and pink light rays penetrate it and four radiating CGI slots; one ray then reaches a field of varied-color spheres that zoom outward to reveal a light purple HBO logo, which is overlaid by a cursive magenta "Movie" script against a black and purple sphere-dotted background.

(It commenced outside a movie theater facade (displaying the HBO logo and the words "Feature Presentation" on the marquee), leading into a trek across countryside road, snowy mountain cliffside, and desert settings—respectively passing under an electrical transmission tower and an above-ground tunnel, and through a tank trailer cylinder shaped in each letter of the HBO lettermark; a metropolitan neighborhood follows, culminating in a flying leap above a bridge between two skyscrapers, and a slower-speed panning shot above an HBO-lettermark-shaped lake outlined by spotlights before a 3D animation of the "Feature Presentation" text forms.

After its launch in Hungary, it has expanded to several Central European and Balkan countries such as the Czech Republic in 1994, Poland in 1996, Slovakia in 1997, Romania in 1998, Moldova in 1999, Bulgaria in 2001, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006, and Northern Macedonia in 2009.