marclafountain.com

Francisca and I have loved numerous HBO shows for years. Entourage continues to be one of our favorites and we like what we’ve seen so far of In Treatment. I say “what we’ve seen so far” because we don’t actually get HBO. We’re watching the first 15 episodes of In Treatment on our Apple TV via the free official podcast and getting Entourage via DVD.

We made a decision to cancel cable (including HBO) last year, because we didn’t watch enough TV in an average month to justify $89.70 a month plus tax. (That happens to be the minimum non-teaser price from our cable company to get a package that includes HBO.)

Many of the shows we watch are available for free via an HD Over-The-Air antenna that works with our HD TiVo. And, most of those that aren’t can purchased for $1.99 either via iTunes and sent to our Apple TV or via Amazon Unbox and sent to our TiVo.

I say “most” because HBO doesn’t sell any of its content on iTunes or Amazon Unbox. I would happily pay HBO $1.99 per 30-minute episode of In Treatmemt, which seems more than reasonable to me, if it would just sell the show digitally. But, it won’t.

Hell, HBO doesn’t even sell old, discontinued content digitally. If you want to watch Six Feet Under from 2001 or Sex in the City from 1998, it means buying or renting DVDs. Is HBO seriously thinking that digital sales would cannibalize DVD revenue for content that old? It strikes me as a company that just doesn’t understand where content delivery is heading.

Up until recently, HBO was by far the best content provider on cable and so could dictate the terms of content delivery. I think that is going to change. Networks like FX, AMC, and Showtime are creating great shows and selling them digitally (though sometimes after a delay from when they aired on cable). The earth is moving under HBO’s feet.

At some point, I think people will tire of paying their HBO Tax and want to get their content when and how they want it. Let’s just hope that HBO wakes up to this fact sooner rather than later, as I really would love to keep watching its shows.