Monday, April 1, 2013

HBO Go to add live sports?

HBO Sports head Ken Hershman, speaking at the Harvard Sports Law Symposium that his network was "actively pursuing the idea of putting live streaming sporting events on HBO Go."  When is another question - one person attending the conference said the goal was to have live streaming sports by the end of this year, while other press reports have HBO indicating that they have no intentions of adding live sports to HBO Go "anytime soon."  HBO's chief executive Richard Plepler also contributed to the uncertainty of HBO Go's focus when he speculated that the streaming service might someday be offered as part of a bundle with high-speed internet access.

  Adding live sports would be the draw that could provide the demand for a higher-priced HBO Go as a stand-alone streaming service - but the long-term viability will depend more on the cost of carriage rights - and for now, the highly competitive cable sports market is driving up carriage fees.  So while live sports is something that's worth looking into for the programmers at HBO Go, it may be some time before the numbers make it a viable business decision - at least for more popular sports.

Source -  HBO Go planning to add livestreaming sports in 2013,  VentureBeat

No comments:

Post a Comment