Hey, all you HBO Go moochers, there is still hope of getting a standalone HBO Go subscription at a totally-not-a-rip-off price without paying for cable TV first. HBO is now "seriously considering" the possibility of making that happen.
At an investment conference, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was asked by Goldman Sachs analyst Drew Borst whether HBO would finally consider side-stepping cable distributors and going directly to consumers so that "anybody who's got a broadband connection can get it for $15 or $20 or whatever the price is."
This was his (condensed) response:
Yes, it's a really good question. Many of you have asked it. And we ask it all the time and are always looking at it.
The broadband opportunity is getting quite a bit bigger, and the ability of the plant to deliver something robust is getting stronger; and so the question you're asking is becoming more viable, more interesting.
We're seriously considering what is the best way to deal with online distribution, but I don't have anything to announce about it today.
So you never know. You never know. They might just buckle. [Quartz]