Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television network owned by WarnerMedia Entertainment and the flagship property of parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. Programming featured on the network consists primarily of theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs, along with made-for-cable movies, documentaries and occasional comedy and concert specials.
Headquartered at the Home Box Office, Inc. facilities inside WarnerMedia’s corporate headquarters at 30 Hudson Yards in Manhattan’s West Side district, HBO is the first, oldest and longest continuously operating subscription television service (basic or a la carte premium) in the United States, having been in operation since November 8, 1972 (initially as a regional service until it began transmitting nationwide via satellite in September 1975). The overall HBO business unit is one of WarnerMedia’s most profitable assets (after Warner Bros. Entertainment), generating operating income of nearly $2 billion each year;[1] HBO has 140 million subscribers worldwide as of 2018.[2]
The network operates seven 24-hour, linear multiplex channels as well as video on demand and streaming platforms, including HBO Go (a TV Everywhere service for HBO’s linear television subscribers that launched in February 2010, and will be discontinued on July 31, 2020) and HBO Now (which launched in April 2015, and has over 5 million subscribers in the United States as of February 2018),[3] and its content is the centerpiece of HBO Max, a separately operated, expanded streaming platform operated that also includes original programming produced exclusively for the service and content from other WarnerMedia properties. The HBO linear channels are not accessible on either streaming service, but continue to be available to existing subscribers of traditional and virtual pay TV providers, and to Apple, Amazon and Roku customers through streaming partnerships with those companies.
