HBO in Talks with Apple for On Demand Service

A new report from International Business Times says that HBO is talking with Apple about launching its previously reported on-demand service, HBO Now, this coming April on the Apple TV. The timing is said to be planned to take advantage of the new season of Game of Thrones, which is HBO’s most popular show by a mile.

According to the story, HBO Now will cost $15 per month, and will be available for purchase from HBO directly. However, it seems as though the service won’t be exclusive to Apple TV, as the report says that Time Warner – HBO’s owner – “will rely on a whole new line of distributors” such as “Apple TV, Roku, Xbox, PlayStation, Amazon, etc.”

Meanwhile, the service is being built by Major League Baseball Advanced Media, of all entities, the company responsible for bringing baseball to viewers the world over via MLB.TV, not to mention managing the MLB.com website, as well as MLB Radio and BaseballChannel.TV. The company might be a good choice to create the service since it’s had many years of history in bringing both live broadcasts and archived content to customers via tons of different devices and ISPs. That said, MLB.TV hasn’t been without its technical hiccups along the way, so HBO Now may suffer from similar growing pains, at least at first.

When April rolls around, hopefully HBO will release information about how we can all skip the cable box and simply buy all the HBO content we like. If HBO Now proves to be the success many people are predicting, there’s no doubt that other content providers will start to follow a similar path. We may end up buying our TV a la carte before too long…

[Source: International Business Times]