HBO has announced that its premium television programming will soon be available without a cable subscription.
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Speculation on this move has existed for some time, but the company surprisingly announced the change today, as reported by Variety. The over-the-top service means you can subscribe to HBO specifically without having to go through a cable provider or having it tied in to your cable subscription.
"This will be transformative for our company," HBO head Richard Plepler said during his presentation at Time Warner's Investor Day conference. Plepler mentioned that 10 million households in the U.S. are cable-free, broadband-only and stated, "It is time to remove all barriers to those who want HBO."
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Services such as Netflix (especially with original programming) and Hulu have increasingly lessened consumers' need for a full and expensive cable subscription. High-speed internet allows an efficient alternative to watching traditionally on television, and HBO has already seen success with its HBO Go service.
Plepler couldn't reveal many details about the company's plans, which are currently still in development with partners. The changes will be coming sometime in 2015, but the time frame was not specified.
"We will go beyond the wall and launch a stand-alone over-the-top service with the potential to produce hundred of millions of dollars in revenue," Plepler said. "The international revenue possibilities could be just as large if not larger (with OTT). We have huge opportunity in front of us. We will use all means at our disposal to go after it."
