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HBO Founded & First Broadcast
HBO was founded on November 8, 1972 by Time INC. The first broadcast was a "National Hockey League game from Madison Square Garden going out to 365 TV subscribers" (Zippia, 2022). -
First to Deliver...
HBO's edge compared to other networks was commercial free movies. Many subscribers paid extra money for this service. In 1975, HBO "became the first American network to deliver its programming by satellite and thus became the first national cable channel" (Gregersen, E.). -
Lawsuit with Viacom
In November of 1989, HBO released a comedy channel that showed snippets of various comedic standup shows and others. HA!: The Comedy TV Network filed a lawsuit against HBO's comedy channel as they were both competing for the same audience. They came to a mutual agreement and settled to merge their channels into what we know now as Comedy Central. (Zippia, 2022) -
Establishing a Second Channel...
In 1991, HBO established a second channel called HBO2. This provided HBO with more viewers as time went on. From there they established HBO Family and HBO Latino. (Gregersen, E.) -
Home Grown
HBO began experimenting with creation of their own series. Some popular titles include the Sopranos (1999-2007), True Blood (2008-2014), and Game of Thrones (2011-2019). With titles such as Game of Thrones brought in a whole new customer base as this series was based on George R.R. Martin's series of books. (Gregersen, E.). -
Internet Streaming
"In 2010 HBO released HBO Go, an Internet-streaming service on which subscribers" could stream their favorite titles on-the-go (Gregersen, E.). In 2020, HBO MAX replaced HBO Go in the online streaming world.