HBO’s chief executive Richard Plepler made waves earlier this year when he indicated that the company may expand its HBO GO offering to non-cable subscribers. The executive noted that in the future, HBO could potentially team up with Internet providers to offer the popular streaming service to customers separately from pay-TV packages. Cord cutters shouldn’t celebrate just yet, however. Jeff Bewkes, CEO of HBO’s parent company Time Warner, said on Wednesday that the company has no plans to offer HBO GO without a cable subscription.
“We have the rights to do it and we would do it if we thought it was in our economic best interest,” Bewkes said, according to Deadline, adding that the market for a stand-alone HBO streaming service is “not sufficiently big enough now” in the United States.
The executive revealed that HBO and Cinemax have roughly 40 million subscribers in the U.S. through partnerships with cable and satellite service providers, and these are relationships the company would like to protect. Bewkes said that Time Warner will “always look at opportunities to increase distribution” and the company is “always going to keep evaluating it depending on the country.”
