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HBO history
HBO company history timeline
The first HBO presentation, a National Hockey League game from Madison Square Garden, went out to 365 cable TV subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on November 8, 1972.
The namesake Home Box Office (HBO) pay television network was founded by Dolan—as a joint venture between Sterling Communications and its co-partner, Time Life Broadcast Inc.—in 1972.
On May 9, 1973, reportedly because of high start-up and operating costs for HBO and other Sterling cable assets, Time announced it would sell its controlling share of Sterling to Warner Communications for $20 million.
HBO began continuously transmitting via satellite on September 30, 1975, for the broadcast of the "Thrilla in Manila" heavyweight championship boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier from the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Philippines.
In 1975 it became the first American network to deliver its programming by satellite and thus became the first national cable channel.
In May 1976, Gerald Levin was promoted to chairman and CEO of Home Box Office Inc., succeeded as company president by Manhattan Cable president Nicholas "N.J." Nicholas Jr.
On March 29, 1977, the District of Columbia Appeals Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in Home Box Office v.
HBO won greater latitude in pursuing customers in 1977 when a federal ruling lifted restrictions on the choice of movies and sports available on pay-TV. HBO quickly became one of the primary engines driving the growth of the cable industry.
Home Box Office's first attempt at a secondary service was Take 2, a movie channel marketed at a family audience that launched in April 1979.
Take 2, however, was hampered by a slow subscriber and carriage growth, forcing Time-Life to shut down the channel in May 1980.
In 1980 HBO introduced a second channel, Cinemax, to compete with Showtime at a lower price point.
In 1982 HBO, CBS Inc., and Columbia Pictures jointly launched the movie studio Tri-Star Pictures, which later came wholly under the control of Columbia.
Lindsey, Robert, "Home Box Office Moves in on Hollywood," New York Times Magazine, June 12, 1983.
Film production for the HBO television service commenced in 1983, through the formation of HBO Premiere Films, which was originally developed to produce original made-for-cable movies and miniseries with higher budgets and production values compared to other television films.
HBO's fortunes started to shift again in 1984 because of competition caused by video rentals and the rising cost of cable service.
The studio's first production, Kevin Costner-led The Natural, was released in 1984.
Despite the cable television slump, HBO had 14.6 million subscribers in 1985 and sales of about $800 million.
In 1985, the operations of Home Box Office Inc. were relocated to facilities on West 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue in the Bryant Park district of Midtown Manhattan.
On April 1, 1986, HBO commenced test-marketing of a new mini-pay service, Festival, to six American Television and Communications Corporation systems.
Block, Alex Ben, "Shoot-Out Time in Pay TV," Forbes, September 22, 1986.
Tri-Star entered into the television production business, in April 1987, with the formation of Tri-Star Television.
HBO acquired Cannon's interest in the venture in April 1987, amid financial losses incurred by the film studio after an unsuccessful attempt at releasing a series of larger budget films that floundered in box office revenue; the unit was subsequently renamed HBO Video.
In 1987 it bought the rights to 85 Paramount Pictures films over a five-year period.
Others, such as Tanner ’88 (1988), hinted at the high levels of quality that could be achieved on pay television.
Home Box Office, Inc. entered into television production outside of the flagship HBO channel in 1988, with the formation of HBO Downtown Productions.
On November 15, 1989, Home Box Office, Inc. launched The Comedy Channel, a comedy-centered basic cable channel featuring clips excerpted from stand-up comedy sets, comedic feature films and television series.
1989: Viacom files a $2.4 billion antitrust lawsuit agains t HBO.
Bot h Comedy Channel and HA! were struggling, however, and in a surprise move, HBO and Viacom agreed to merge them into Comedy Central late in 1990.
Cox, Meg, “Time Warner’s HBO, Broadcast Music Settle Suit over Performance Rights,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 1991.
In April 1991 Comedy Channel suffered another setback when Viacom's HA! began broadcasting old sitcoms in their entirety, eschewing Comedy Channel's practice of showing excerpts.
The end of t he bidding wars helped raise HBO's profits: In 1992 operating profits were up by 10 percent, to $215 million, and they rose the next y ear as well, to $230 million.
lewis, scott m. "home box office inc." international directory of company histories. vol 7. detroit, mi: st. james press, 1993.
Membership continued to ris e; in 1993 the subscriber base increased by one million to 24.7 milli on.
The tides had begun to turn for HBO , which in 1993 provided 8 percent of Time Warner's pretax profit.
A revised system—centered around ten content codes of two to three letters in length—was implemented across HBO and the other participating pay services on June 10, 1994.
In 1994 Jolie Solomon of Newsweek assessed the situation, noting that CEO Fuchs "must stay ahead of the multimedia revolution, especially the technology that will create ho me-video jukeboxes.
Fuchs's competitive, aggressive, and some said antagonistic managemen t style, however, was not popular among all board members and shareho lders, and he was replaced as CEO in 1995 by Jeffrey L. Bewkes.
BET repurchased all of Time Warner's stock in April 1996 in a $58-million transaction.
schlosser, jon. "showtime fights for screen time." broadcasting & cable, 14 april 1997.
On the other hand, according to a December 1997 article in Business Week, "HBO has become the most efficient profit machine in the Time Warner Inc. empire, with a return on invested capital of about 55 percent.
stevens, elisabeth lesly. "call it home buzz office."business week, 8 december 1997.
In fact, in 1997 he spent an impressive $25 m illion to promote that brand, a figure that did not include the adver tising budget for specific programs.
In 1997 HBO received 90 nominations for Emmys, marking th e first time a cable network had garnered more nominations than any b roadcast network.
The satellite market had matured by 1998, h owever, and HBO could no longer rely on that market boom for increasi ng its subscriber base.
Time Warner consolidated HBO Pictures and HBO NYC Productions into a singular unit, HBO Films, in October 1999; since then, the division has expanded into theatrical film productions distributed by sister company Warner Bros.
HBO won 20 Pri metime Emmy awards in 2000, and the company was adding new subscriber s to its base at a steady clip.
In 2001, America Online joined forces with Time Wa rner in a hotly contested, highly publicized $106 billion mega-me rger.
"AOL Time Warner: End of a New Era," Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2002.
Although not as popular as The Sopranos, the crime series The Wire (2002–08), which chronicled the decay of American institutions such as public education and the press, was acclaimed by critics.
Its television unit was merged with Columbia Pictures Television and joint venture studio Columbia TriStar Television in 2002 to form Sony Pictures Television).
The new company was named AOL Time Warner (Time Warner dropped AOL from its name in 2003).
In 2003, HBO reigned above all other networks at the annual Emmy cere mony, receiving 18 awards.
The company was one of the most profitable units in the Time Warner empire and in 2004 sales surpassed $3 billion for the first time.
Carter, Bill, "HBO to Give 3 New Films for Viewing on Public TV," New York Times, January 10, 2005.
In 2005, the company partnered with New Line Cinema to a cquire Newmarket Entertainment's distribution business.
In 2005, HBO Films and New Line Cinema formed Picturehouse, a worldwide theatrical distribution company for high-quality independent films.
Cable channel A&E signed a contract with HBO that year, paying $2.5 million per episode to air The Sopranos starting in 2006.
The unit—renamed HBO Home Entertainment on September 5, 2009—eventually transferred the manufacturing of physical products to Warner Home Video.
Spent Award-winning Video Acc championship 2009 Additional Advantage Advertising Campaigns Analyst Art Dealer Banner advertising campaign online Spent
In 2010 HBO released HBO Go, an Internet-streaming service on which subscribers could watch HBO programming.
Entertainment. (Picturehouse CEO Bob Berney would later resurrect the studio as an independent entity in 2013, after purchasing the trademark rights from Time Warner.)
On October 22, 2016, AT&T disclosed an offer to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion, including assumed debt held by the latter company.
Time Warner shareholders approved the merger on February 15, 2017.
In August 2017, as part of their co-production deal with the studio, HBO and Sky acquired minority equity interests in British television production company Bad Wolf (producer of the HBO miniseries The Night Of).
The merger closed two days later on June 14, 2018, with Time Warner becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, which renamed the unit WarnerMedia.
Under WarnerMedia stewardship, on October 10, 2018, the company announced plans for a new OTT platform combining programming from HBO with content from various other WarnerMedia properties, including Warner Bros.
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.
On March 4, 2019, AT&T announced a major reorganization of WarnerMedia's assets, dividing WarnerMedia's television properties among three corporate divisions.
Stankey, meanwhile, wanted to leverage HBO and the broader WarnerMedia content library to develop a viable streaming competitor to Netflix, which resulted in the development and May 2020 launch of HBO Max over HBO Go and HBO Now's existing technical infrastructure.
On August 7, 2020, WarnerMedia restructured several of its units in a major corporate revamp that resulted in Home Box Office, Inc. and all other WarnerMedia Entertainment assets being consolidated with Warner Bros.
On June 1, 2021, it was announced that the merged company would be known as Warner Bros.
Lewis, Scott; Brown, Susan; Stansell, Christina "Home Box Office Inc. ." International Directory of Company Histories. . Retrieved June 21, 2022 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/home-box-office-inc
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HBO competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starz | 1994 | $1.6B | 916 | 47 |
| AMC Networks | 1980 | $2.4B | 2,197 | 59 |
| Showtime Networks | 1976 | $950.0M | 1,050 | - |
| Lionsgate | 1997 | $3.9B | 3,500 | 11 |
| Usa Networks | - | $10.0M | 3,000 | - |
| FX Networks | 1994 | $18.1M | 100 | - |
| BBC America | - | $11.0M | 175 | - |
| Warner Bros. | 1923 | $39.3B | 8,000 | 605 |
| Sony Pictures | 1987 | $7.1B | 9,500 | 121 |
| CBS Sports Network | 2002 | $73.9M | 230 | - |
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of HBO, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about HBO. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at HBO. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by HBO. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of HBO and its employees or that of Zippia.
HBO may also be known as or be related to HBO, Hbo, Home Box Office Inc, Home Box Office Inc. and Home Box Office, Inc.