HBO Still Doesn’t Get It

[Azure]

Three seasons in and Game of Thrones still continues to set records — both legitimate and otherwise. After hitting ratings milestones earlier this year, it now has yet another accomplishment to boast about: the most pirated show of 2013.

This latest honor comes via TorrentFreak, which found that the Season 3 finale of the show had 5.9 million downloads via BitTorrent, beating other shows like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead by large margins. However, the fact that millions of people are pirating Game of Thrones really isn’t the story here — or, if it is, it’s not a new one. What bears examining is the extent to which that piracy is a direct product of HBO’s policies — and the network’s staunch refusal to budge in the face of mounting evidence that their policy of avoiding third-party distribution to reinforce the value of their product is accomplishing just the opposite.

It’s not that HBO doesn’t acknowledge the volume of torrenting taking place. In fact, in August Jeff Bewkes, CEO of HBO parent Time Warner, called out piracy as “better than an Emmy” for stimulating interest in Game of Thrones and increasing the number of legitimate HBO subscriptions. Yet statements like that demonstrate that they don’t really seem to get how — or why — piracy is happening, or their role in that.


For the last decade evidence has mounted that, while some measure of media piracy is inevitable, it thrives on inconvenience: given the means, viewers will generally pay for a legitimate source, but only if they can get to it more easily than an illegal one. That’s the backbone of services like iTunes and Netflix: making those transactions easy and, critically, fast.

PiracyData.com, which tracks piracy statistics for movies, has found that the list of most-pirated movies in any given week have one factor overwhelmingly in common: There’s no way to legally stream them. That’s a more complicated conversation when applied to the established theatrical-release-home-release structure of movies. Television, on the other hand, is designed to be watched in the convenience of your home, and the success it’s found by way of streaming services reflects that. They give us a more convenient, selective way to interact with media in much the same way we would anyway.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/...es-piracy-hbo/

[RW99]

They seem to think it is still more profitable to keep things as is for now with their cable subscriptions. As more people cut the cord, I'm sure they will change their delivery methods. But I don't think it will ever be 'too little too late' with the quality programming they have.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by RW99

They seem to think it is still more profitable to keep things as is for now with their cable subscriptions. As more people cut the cord, I'm sure they will change their delivery methods. But I don't think it will ever be 'too little too late' with the quality programming they have.

It could quite possibly be more profitable long term to not give in. Just because they're losing some potential sales by offering unit retails, it would likely come at the longer term expense of subscriptions. How many of the piraters would pay for the product? Probably a fraction of the pirated copies

[theinfinitejar]

What a maroon. This writer doesn't even try to show how this would benefit HBO compared to their current model.

Unsurprisingly, HBO actually knows more about running HBO than dopes on the internet.
EDIT: Fixed link

[CaramonLS]

^^ broken link.

[Mike F]

Proper Link

[gargamel]

At the risk of offending Game of Thrones fans, I wonder if the "nerdy" target audience has as much to do with the amount of torrenting as does HBO's policies. If you put Game of Thrones on iTunes, I bet it would still be proportionately pirated more than a show like Homeland.

[GGG]

HBO needs to carefully walk this line. The record companies lost this battle with the same arguements. Optomitrists are losing with the same arguments. Protecting outdated distribution systems by restricting content has not been an effective long term solution.

If HBO doesnt have a trulpely epic show (they are down to jus GoT) people are going to start watching netflix originals which are quite good before the good but not great HBO shows. HBO has significant competition now from AMC, Netflix, Showtime, etc so the enviroment is becoming much more difficult.

[CMPunk]

Originally Posted by GGG

HBO needs to carefully walk this line. The record companies lost this battle with the same arguements. Optomitrists are losing with the same arguments. Protecting outdated distribution systems by restricting content has not been an effective long term solution.

If HBO doesnt have a trulpely epic show (they are down to jus GoT) people are going to start watching netflix originals which are quite good before the good but not great HBO shows. HBO has significant competition now from AMC, Netflix, Showtime, etc so the enviroment is becoming much more difficult.

What do Eye Doctors have to do with GoT?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by CMPunk

What do Eye Doctors have to do with GoT?

They're losing massive business to the likes of ClearlyContacts.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by gargamel

At the risk of offending Game of Thrones fans, I wonder if the "nerdy" target audience has as much to do with the amount of torrenting as does HBO's policies. If you put Game of Thrones on iTunes, I bet it would still be proportionately pirated more than a show like Homeland.

Possibly, HBO's other big show "True Blood", which until the most recent season had better viewership numbers than GoT, doesn't place in the top 10 list.

Plus from the list, #2 Breaking Bad and #3 TWD are already readily available for episode purchase and streaming a day after the initial showing, while #4, #6 and #10 are shown on broadcast networks.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CMPunk

What do Eye Doctors have to do with GoT?

Optometrists and Opticians are trying to make it more difficult to order eyeglasses on line by not providing key measurements like PD instead of charging for that service. In the end they are only losing business.

Essentially its another example of a group being protectionist instead of embracing the internet as a way to expand business.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Possibly, HBO's other big show "True Blood", which until the most recent season had better viewership numbers than GoT, doesn't place in the top 10 list.

Plus from the list, #2 Breaking Bad and #3 TWD are already readily available for episode purchase and streaming a day after the initial showing, while #4, #6 and #10 are shown on broadcast networks.

People download for a variety of reasons. Maybe I have Netflix, but because of Canada's archaic wireless data plans, I download a show to my comp, then transfer it to my tablet for easier viewing (say on a train or airplane or place without wifi).

Should people feel guilty about doing stuff like that? Especially if the show is readily available on a medium they own?

[oilyfan]

It's the same reason that movie houses aren't willing to make first run movies available to the public for streaming. The revenue stream generated by the movie theatres is too secure and lucrative to jeopardize by cutting them out.

And frankly I see that concern as valid, you can see how music revenues have significantly dropped since the heyday, yes they are recovering now but this has been a world of hurt for recording industry. Now it can be argued that they had it coming, but nonetheless no industry wants to go through that.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by oilyfan

It's the same reason that movie houses aren't willing to make first run movies available to the public for streaming. The revenue stream generated by the movie theatres is too secure and lucrative to jeopardize by cutting them out.

And frankly I see that concern as valid, you can see how music revenues have significantly dropped since the heyday, yes they are recovering now but this has been a world of hurt for recording industry. Now it can be argued that they had it coming, but nonetheless no industry wants to go through that.

But if the day the music Industry shutdown Napster they could have released the Itunes music store it would have gone much better for them. Dont let the average person learn how to Pirate things.

[Azure]

Netflix appears to be killing HBO and its brethren in premium cable TV, according to new data from NPD Group, the big market research company.

The proportion of people subscribing to streaming video on demand services is now almost equal to the number of people who get premium cable TV channels like HBO and Showtime, NPD says.

Streaming video customers are 27% of the TV audience, and premium cable subscribers are now 32%, NPD says. In the last 18 months, the premium cable market share has declined by six percentage points while the streaming video folks have increased by four points.

If NPD's numbers are right, it means 15% of HBO's customer base just disappeared in the last few months.

http://www.businessinsider.com/netfl...#ixzz2r3oUp9AT

I wonder if people still think HBO knows what they're doing.

[VANFLAMESFAN]

Originally Posted by Azure

http://www.businessinsider.com/netfl...#ixzz2r3oUp9AT

I wonder if people still think HBO knows what they're doing.

Did you see Alexandra Daddario in True Detective this past weekend? HBO knows what they're doing.

[Azure]

Don't get me wrong, they have great shows. Kinda pointless though when your subscription base in eroding though in favor of piracy because you're too stubborn to update your business model in order to keep up with new technologies.

Fact is HBO is making fabulous shows that are being pirated at an ever increasing rate simply because Time Warner is too stubborn to offer other options to subscribe and stream.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by VANFLAMESFAN

Did you see Alexandra Daddario in True Detective this past weekend? HBO knows what they're doing.

That was one of the most epic moments of the history of cable TV. When she enters the scene in that tight T-shirt sans bra I was like; "Dear god please" and when my prayers were answered; "....". Actually I was kind of speechless as that scene was breathtaking.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

That was one of the most epic moments of the history of cable TV. When she enters the scene in that tight T-shirt sans bra I was like; "Dear god please" and when my prayers were answered; "....". Actually I was kind of speechless as that scene was breathtaking.

Forum etiquette here people...surely there is a .gif online to which you could be linking us.