HBO Now: History and Key Facts

HBO Now (known as HBO from August to December 2020) was an American subscription video on demand streaming service for premium television network HBO owned by WarnerMedia subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. Announced on March 9 and launched on April 7, 2015, the service allowed subscribers on-demand access to HBO's library of original programs, films and other content on personal computers, smartphones, tablet devices and digital media players. Unlike HBO Go, HBO's online video on demand service for subscribers of the linear television channel, HBO Now was available as a standalone service and did not require a television subscription to use, targeting cord cutters who use competing services such as Netflix and Hulu. In February 2018, HBO Now had five million subscribers.

HBO Now was succeeded on May 27, 2020 by HBO Max, a DTC service that also includes content from Warner Bros. and other WarnerMedia properties. Subscribers of the linear HBO television service and HBO Now were able to use HBO Max at no additional cost, although some providers did not immediately reach agreements (Amazon did not reach an agreement until mid-November, while Roku would not reach a deal until mid-December 2020). The "HBO Now" branding was removed at the end of July, while the service and app remained available for Roku OS and select TiVo users; support for the HBO streaming app was discontinued on December 17, 2020, when Roku replaced it with HBO Max.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from HBO Now by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.