HBO (
Home Box Office) is a premium television programming subsidiary of
Time Warner. It offers two 24-hour pay television services, HBO and
Cinemax, to over 38 million U.S. subscribers. The services include the subscription video on demand products, HBO On Demand and Cinemax On Demand, as well as multiplex channels and HD feeds. Internationally the subscription video on demand products HBO On Demand and HBO Mobile, along with HBO branded joint ventures, bring its services to over 50 countries. HBO programming is broadcast into over 150 countries worldwide.
[Time Warner: HBO. Home Box Office]
History
In 1965, cable pioneer
Charles Dolan won the franchise to build a cable system in lower
Manhattan. The new system, called Sterling Manhattan Cable by Mr. Dolan, was the nation's first urban underground cable system. Rather than stringing cable on telephone poles and using
microwave antennas to receive the signals, Sterling laid underground cable beneath the streets of Manhattan because television signals were blocked by many tall buildings.
Time Life, Inc., in the same year, purchased 20 percent of Dolan's company.
Dolan presented his "Green Channel" idea to Time Life management, and though satellite distribution was only a distant possibility at the time, he persuaded Time Life to back him, and soon "The Green Channel" became Home Box Office on November 8, 1972. HBO began using a network of microwave relay towers to feed its programming.
[Home Box Office early transmissions][HBO Soundtrack:Home Box Office 5 Years - Nov 1977 HBO Guide][FCC History of Communications] The first program and film to be seen on HBO was
Sometimes a Great Notion, starring
Paul Newman and
Henry Fonda to a
CATV system in
Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania (a plaque commemorating this event is found in Wilkes-Barre's downtown Public Square).
[HBO Soundtrack:Home Box Office 5 Years - Nov 1977 HBO Guide] HBO's first sports event was broadcast immediately afterwards, an
NHL hockey game from
Madison Square Garden featuring the
New York Rangers and the
Vancouver Canucks (New York won, 5-2).
