Home Box Office is heading overseas once more, but this time with a service called HBO Nordic launching in, unsurprisingly, the Nordic countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. And with no pay-TV subscription required.
HBO Nordic
is set to launch in October, bringing original HBO programming to the Nordic countries. It’s a joint venture between HBO and Parsifal International, and the content will be made available in a number of different ways.
Local television providers will carry a premium 24-hour HBO Nordic channel, but the programming will also be available on the Web for less than €10 – HBO will reveal the final pricing for each country at a later date.
The programming on offer will range from original HBO shows such as True Blood and Game of Thrones, classic and up-to-date movies, and content from both Showtime and Starz, neither of which has an international presence of their own.
HBO Go So Low
This is obviously big news for those in the countries mentioned, but it’s also big news for the fact that HBO Nordic will be available without any kind of subscription to a pay-TV service. Which is a pre-requisite for using HBO Go online in the U.S.
While Home Box Office is merely protecting its lucrative deals with U.S. distributors such as Comcast and DirecTV, it must be galling for HBO Go users to hear that they’re getting a worse deal than their Nordic cousins.
The Internet has opened up possibilities galore for consuming content individual viewers want to watch, and they shouldn’t be forced to keep their cable subscriptions in place to gain access to content online. Which is why so many are cutting the cord entirely.
Conclusions
HBO Nordic is a positive step for Home Box Office to take, and it puts the media company in direct competition with Netflix for the first time. It will be interesting to see how HBO Nordic does upon launch, and whether it sets a precedent HBO decides to imitate in other territories.
[Via Variety]
