In countries where an HBO-branded network does not exist in its own right, the network's programming is licensed instead to domestic pay television services or through a basic cable channel; all of which are permitted to refer to themselves as the "Home of HBO" since 2010, such as with Sky Atlantic and Now TV in parts of Europe, Fox Showcase and Binge in Australia, and Amazon Prime Video in France.

It was developed as an analogue pay channel, but used UHF broadcast frequencies and ran its programming for nine hours each day.

After the Brazilian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Grupo Abril sold its share in the network to Time Warner.

The HBO multiplex channel was launched as HBO Canada on October 30, 2008, as a joint venture between two regional Canadian pay television services: Astral Media-owned The Movie Network (now Crave), which operated in provinces east of the Ontario-Manitoba border, and Corus Entertainment-owned Movie Central, which operated in provinces west of the aforementioned delineated border as well as the territories.

The Canadian HBO service would become tied to a single national pay service, when, on November 19, 2015, Corus Entertainment reached an agreement with Bell in which it would agree to cancel Movie Central's pay television license, and sell the network's distribution rights and subscriber base to Bell for C$211 million, in order to allow The Movie Network to expand into Western Canada.

HBO launched the channel to replace the Spanish foreign-language feed, which formerly served the English-speaking Caribbean market.

HBO OLÉ reached a break-even profit by 1993, and had about 500,000 subscribers by 1994; that year, a secondary channel was launched, along with a Portuguese feed for Brazil.

HBO Asia was originally co-owned by UIP Pay TV, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner and SingTel.

Since that point, HBO has expanded into 15 European markets including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia.

The network ceased operations on 15 December 2020[6] HBO Netherlands launched on 9 February 2012 over cable television provider Ziggo, as a three-channel multiplex service featuring HBO original programs airing on a day-behind basis from their initial United States broadcast.

HBO Netherlands was available to subscribers of Ziggo, KPN, UPC, XS4ALL, Telfort, fibre providers Glashart Media and Vodafone Glasvezel and satellite broadcaster CanalDigitaal.

[7] Following the 31 December 2016 closure of HBO Netherlands, cable television provider Ziggo, as part of its acquisition of the broadcasting licenses to the network's content for the Dutch market, began offering HBO programs on its video on demand service Ziggo Movies & Series XL.

From September 2015 to December 2018, local premium television channel TVCine e Séries broadcast the majority of HBO's programs.

Prior to 2011, TG4 in Ireland had a long-term agreement to broadcast HBO programming free-to-air, this ceased following the creation of Sky Atlantic.

Discovery and Amazon Prime Video announced the launch of the "Warner Pass", an add-on "channel" subscription that will include past and upcoming HBO programming, with Prime Video becoming the new home for HBO in France, after previously signed a deal with Warner Bros.

In 2015, Nova Cinema announced a new output deal with HBO to broadcast the biggest hit series in Greece and Cyprus at the same time with the US.

On February 19, 2018, Belgian telecommunications company Proximus announced a deal to carry the BeTV bouquet for the distribution of HBO programs in French-speaking Belgium.

[29] HBO signed an exclusive deal with the South African streaming service Showmax owned by MultiChoice Group.

This deal includes exclusive streaming rights to every single HBO title and new episodes to be added the same day they air in the United States.

[31][32] In 2005, the HBO Mobile wireless service launched via Vodafone in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and South Africa, and via SK Telecom in Korea in 2006.

The service launched in the United Kingdom in 2007 via BT Vision, TalkTalk TV and Virgin Media,[needs update] and then rolled out to Cyprus in 2008 through PrimeTv of PrimeTel Ltd.