History of HBO

HBO has since expanded to include seven multiplex channels in the United States; and, through its namesake parent subsidiary, twelve active and three defunct international services (either owned by Warner Bros.

Discovery, Inc. HBO's origins trace to December 1, 1965, when Charles Dolan—a former marketer and distributor of sports and industrial films for television syndication, who had already done pioneering work in the commercial use of cables—was granted a franchise permit by the New York City Council to build a cable television system encompassing the Lower Manhattan section of New York City (traversing southward from 79th Street on the Upper East Side to 86th Street on the Upper West Side).

Sterling's use of underground cables complied with a longstanding New York City Council ordinance—originally implemented to prevent broad-scale telephone and telegraph outages, after a severe blizzard affecting the Northeastern United States in March 1888 had caused widespread damage to above-ground utility lines in the area—requiring all electrical and telecommunication wiring to be laid underground to limit weather-related service disruptions, and was also necessitated because the multitude of tall buildings on Manhattan Island subjected television signals to reception impairments.

The concept, codenamed "The Green Channel", was for a subscription service that 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.

Since the channel would air films without edits for objectionable content, cable operators also wanted to know what movies would be shown on the service to avoid potential advertiser objections and FCC fines for indecency.

To circumvent this, rather than launch Home Box Office over Sterling Manhattan, Dolan chose to scout another city with two competing cable franchises to serve as its inaugural distribution system.

However, management found out that Allentown and surrounding areas fell within the Philadelphia 76ers's 75-mile (121 km) television blackout radius, which the team enforced to protect revenues generated from ticket sales for their home games (then held at the Spectrum).

Time-Life subsequently agreed to an offer by Teleservice president John Walson to launch HBO on the company's Wilkes-Barre system (located outside of the 76ers' blackout radius), fed from an AT&T microwave link at the Pan Am Building in New York.

(A plaque commemorating the launch event is located at Public Square in downtown Wilkes-Barre, established in honor of Service Electric's April 1984 addition of HBO sister channel Cinemax to its lineup.

Wilkes-Barre resident Marion Sabestinas, who was the first Teleservice customer to sign up to pay the $6 fee to receive Home Box Office's programming at launch, was honored with a lifetime subscription to Cinemax as part of the plaque ceremony.

Through a contractual amendment signed on November 1, 1972, eight days before the service launched,[33][34] HBO inherited broadcast rights to Madison Square Garden-originated events that had been contracted to Sterling Manhattan for one of its local origination channels (which served as the progenitor of the MSG Network) since May 1969.

[66][67][68] The policy may be traced to HBO's availability at the time on analog cable tiers, and was maintained long after competing premium services began offering daytime showings of R-rated films as early as 1980 because of subscriber objections to the practice.

Over the two years following its launch, Home Box Office steadily expanded its regional reach: it became available in New York State for the first time in October 1973, when TelePrompTer's Mount Vernon and Ceracche TV Corp.'s Ithaca systems began offering the service.

)[79] Terrestrial transmission of HBO via multipoint distribution service (MDS) began by the Fall of 1974, available to residents in Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware (via Micro-TV Inc.) and to select apartment buildings in Queens.

Seeing it as the only efficient and cost-effective option to expand distribution of Home Box Office to the entire nation, Time settled on using a geostationary communications satellite to transmit HBO directly to cable providers throughout the United States within and outside of its existing microwave relay network.

HBO also signed an agreement to distribute the satellite feed on eight UA-Columbia Cablevision systems in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Arkansas and Washington State, and have earth station receivers built at their headends to intercept and relay the signal.

[114][115] The network would gradually cultivate a reputation in the comedy world for its stand-up 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.

[136][137] In August 1984, Home Box Office Inc. announced plans to scramble the HBO and Cinemax satellite feeds using the Videocipher II encryption system, becoming the first satellite-delivered television networks to encrypt their signals from unauthorized reception by approximately 1.5 million C-band dish owners as well as by various businesses (including hotels, motels and bars) that used rooftop satellite antennas to freely receive HBO, rather than paying for the network through its affiliated cable systems.

Widespread complaints were fielded to Home Box Office Inc. and satellite dish retailers from television receive-only (TVRO) dish users who previously could view HBO and Cinemax's programming for at no extra cost on their corresponding transponder signals, particularly because of the cost of Videocipher II set-top descramblers needed to unencrypt the signal (retailing up to $395, plus $12.95 each for a monthly subscription [or $19.95 for a bundling of both HBO and Cinemax], equal to or slightly higher than the networks' cable subscription rates, and rental fees for the Videocipher receivers).

Leaning into its growing prominence in pay television, in 1989, HBO unveiled the promotional campaign "Simply the Best"—which used the Tina Turner single "The Best" as its imaging theme in some on-air advertisements—basing its programming in comparison to rival Showtime.

The service—which initially launched on 20 cable systems in markets with significant Hispanic and Latino populations, and aimed specifically at Spanish-dominant and first-language Spanish speakers—[158][159][160] originally provided Spanish-dubbed versions of recent feature film releases from HBO and Cinemax's movie suppliers.

TeleCable customers in Overland Park, Kansas, Racine, Wisconsin and suburban Dallas (Richardson and Plano, Texas) that subscribed to either service began receiving two additional HBO channels, HBO2 and HBO3, as part of a test launch.

[206] The 2000s opened with two series that, although they did not surpass The Sopranos in viewership success, maintained similar or matched its critical acclaim, further cementing HBO's reputation as a leading producer of quality television programming.

While it never won any major television awards, it earned wide critical acclaim for its writing and depictions of criminal and law enforcement issues, also becoming regarded as one of the best series of all time by media organizations such as TV Guide,[211] Entertainment Weekly,[212] Rolling Stone,[213] and the BBC.

)[215] HBO experienced additional viewer success with the 2008 debut of True Blood, a vampire-themed fantasy horror drama based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries gothic novel series by Charlaine Harris.

[220][221][222][223][224] After 2016, under the leadership of programming head Casey Bloys, HBO began to increasingly produce shows about and aimed at women, such as Girls, Veep, Westworld, Euphoria, and House of the Dragon.

This broke with the network's tradition of catering primarily to the tastes of a core audience of young men, which it had sought to attract with shows about "male antiheroes and outlaws", as well as copious female nudity.

The decision cited factors including the influx of sports-based streaming services (such as DAZN and ESPN+) and issues with promoters that hampered its ability to acquire high-profile fight cards, and resulting declining ratings and loss of interest in the sport among HBO's subscribers, as well as WarnerMedia's efforts to have scripted programming become the primary focus of the network's original content.

[247][248] On February 28, 2019, Richard Plepler stepped down from his position as CEO of Home Box Office, Inc., after a collective 27-year tenure at HBO and twelve years as head of the network and its parent unit.

Home Box Office, Inc. (encompassing HBO, Cinemax, and their respective wholly owned international channels and streaming services) was reassigned to WarnerMedia Entertainment, placing it under the same umbrella as sister basic cable networks TBS, TNT and TruTV (which were formerly part of the dissolved Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary), and under the leadership of former NBC and Showtime executive Bob Greenblatt.