HBO's programming schedule currently consists largely of theatrically released feature films and adult-oriented original series (including, , dramas such as
Euphoria,
Industry,
The Gilded Age,
House of the Dragon,
The Last of Us,
Dune: Prophecy,
It: Welcome to Derry,
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and
True Detective; comedies such as ''
It's Florida, Man; and topical satires Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Real Time with Bill Maher''). In addition, HBO also carries documentary films (mainly produced through its in-house production unit HBO Documentary Films), sports-focused documentary and magazine series (produced through its HBO Sports production unit), occasional original made-for-TV movies, occasional original concert and stand-up comedy specials, and short-form behind-the-scenes specials centered mainly on theatrical films (either running in their initial theatrical or HBO/Cinemax broadcast window). Newer episodes of most HBO original programs usually air over its main channel after 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time; depending partly on the day's programming schedule, repeats of original series, made-for-cable movies, and documentaries (typically excluding programs with graphic violent or sexual content) are shown during the daytime on the main channel, and at various times on HBO's themed channels. Four of the themed multiplex channels—HBO Signature, HBO Family, HBO Comedy, and HBO Zone—also each carry archived HBO original series and specials dating to the 1990s. (Outside of HBO Family, which regularly airs archived family-oriented series and specials, airings of older original programs may vary based on the channel's daily schedule.) Beginning with its programming expansion to afternoons in 1974, the primary HBO channel had imposed a longstanding
watershed policy prohibiting films assigned an
"R" rating from being broadcast before 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. (At various points, HBO also prohibited showings of X-/NC-17-rated and foreign
art films.) The policy—which extended to films shown between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET/PT, when HBO began offering 24-hour programming on weekends in September 1981—may have once stemmed from HBO's pre-mid-2000s availability on analog cable tiers (whereas its multiplex channels generally require a
digital cable subscription or at least scrambling), and, because of controversy surrounding daytime showings of R-rated films that began being scheduled on competing premium services as early as 1980, remained in place well after the
V-chip became standard in newer television sets. From April 1979 to March 1987, rating bumpers preceding HBO telecasts of R-rated films included a special disclaimer indicating to viewers that the movie would air exclusively during the designated watershed period ("Home Box Office/HBO will show this feature only at night"). The watershed policy was extended to cover TV-MA-rated programs when the
TV Parental Guidelines were implemented industry-wide on January 1, 1997, although HBO had already been withholding airing original programs incorporating mature content that would now qualify for a TV-MA rating outside the watershed period. In 1998, HBO began airing its prestige comedy and drama series on Sunday nights from 9pm to 11pm, a night when broadcast networks typically neglected airing high-profile shows.
HBO's Sunday night lineup became very popular, with the network scoring high ratings on the night thanks to early shows
The Sopranos and
Sex and the City. The Sunday night block still airs to this day. , HBO no longer employs the watershed policy, allowing R-rated movies to air in selected morning and afternoon timeslots on its main channel. The policy began to be weakened in January 2010, when the main HBO channel started allowing original series, movies, and documentaries given a TV-MA rating for strong profanity or non-graphic violence to air during the daytime on Saturdays and Sundays; in January 2012, HBO began offering occasional Sunday daytime airings of R-rated films within its weekly encore showing of the Saturday movie premiere (airing as early as 4:00 p.m. ET/PT, depending on the previous night's scheduled premiere film, that film's length, and the Sunday night block of HBO original series that usually follows the rebroadcast); by 2017, afternoon R-rated movie airings (which occasionally have been shown as early as 2:00 p.m. ET/PT since then) were permitted in random afternoon timeslots any day of the week on the main channel at the network's discretion. Most of the five HBO thematic multiplex channels—except for HBO Family, which prohibited programming containing either equivalent rating by the effect of the channel's target audience and format—air TV-MA and R-rated programming during morning and afternoon periods. HBO also does not typically allow most NC-17-rated films to be aired on the primary channel or its multiplex channels. HBO pioneered the
free preview concept—now a standard promotional tool in the pay television industry—in 1973, as a marketing strategy allowing participating television providers to offer a sampling of HBO's programming for potential subscribers of the service. Cable providers were permitted to offer the unscrambled HBO content—aired for a single evening or, beginning in 1981 at the network level (as early as 1978 on some providers), over a two-day weekend (later extended to three days in 1997, then to a Friday-to-Monday "four-day weekend" format by 2008)—over a local origination channel, though satellite and digital cable providers elected instead to unencrypt the channels corresponding to each HBO feed for the preview period. Until 2002, interstitials hosted by on-air presenters (notably including, among others,
Norm Crosby,
Greg Kinnear,
Sinbad and
Ellen DeGeneres) promoting the service and its upcoming programs to prospective subscribers aired alongside on-air promotions between programs during the preview weekend, although interstitials produced in-house or by third-party producers were inserted by some providers over the HBO feed during promo breaks for their local or regional audience; from September 1988 to September 1994, the network also aired a 15-minute-long promotional "free preview show" each night of the preview event—usually following the headlining prime time film—that previewed upcoming HBO programming for prospective and existing subscribers. HBO offers between three and five preview events each year—normally scheduled to coincide with the premiere of a new or returning original series, and in the past, a high-profile special or feature film—to pay television providers for distribution on a voluntary participation basis. (The total of participating providers that elected to offer a free preview event varies depending on the given preview period, and participating multiple-system cable operators may elect to carry the event only in certain regions where they provide service.) HBO also produces short segments promoting newer movies with the cooperation of the film studios that hold distribution rights to the projects (almost universally by studios maintaining exclusive pay television contracts with HBO and Cinemax, and which have been rebroadcast on the former during a film's pay-cable distribution window), and have usually consisted of either interstitial "behind-the-scenes" and interview segments on an upcoming/recent theatrical release or
red carpet coverage. Currently, these segments air under the
HBO First Look series of 15-to-20-minute-long documentary-style interstitial specials, which debuted in 1992 and has no set airing schedule. (Since 2010, the "making of" specials, for which HBO officially no longer uses the
First Look name, are only identified under the banner for
program listing identification.) The network previously produced three-to-five-minute-long feature segments that aired during longer-duration between-program promotional breaks,
HBO News (1988–2011; formerly titled
HBO Entertainment News from 1988 to 2007) and
HBO Behind the Scenes (1982–1992). The interstitials—particularly those aired as episodes of
First Look—have also frequently been included as bonus features on DVD and
Blu-ray releases of the profiled films. Since 2011, HBO no longer airs "behind-the-scenes" interstitials during promotional breaks, and has reduced airings of
First Look to a few episodes per year as the network has honed its focus on higher-profile original programs and studios have increasingly limited their self-produced "making of" featurettes for exclusive physical and digital media release. During the network's early years, HBO aired other interstitials in-between programs. Originally billed as
Something Short and Special, around 1980,
InterMissions (as the interstitials were begun to be called in September 1978) was bannered into two groupings:
Video Jukebox, a showcase of music videos from various artists (eventually separated from the other intermission shorts and given various long-form spinoffs, also titled as
Video Jukebox or variants thereof), and
Special, showcasing short films. By 1984, the short segments had mainly been limited to comedic film shorts (originally branded as
HBO Comedy Shorts and then as
HBO Short Takes, which used a set of differing animated intros) and youth-targeted live action and animated short films seen largely before and during family-oriented programming (branded as
HBO Shorts for Kids). Intermission shorts had largely vanished from the channel by 1988. Since 2014, HBO has occasionally aired short films ranging between 15 and 25 minutes in length at varying times each week during the overnight and early morning on its primary and select multiplex channels, in addition to being available on demand via HBO's various streaming and television VOD platforms (including its dedicated portal on HBO Max).
Original programming HBO innovated
original entertainment programming for cable television networks, in which a television series (both dramatic and comedic), made-for-television movie, or entertainment special is developed for and production is primarily, if not exclusively, handled by the channel of its originating broadcast. Since 1973, the network has produced a variety of original programs alongside its slate of theatrical motion pictures. Most of these programs cater to adult viewers (and, with limited exceptions, are typically assigned
TV-MA ratings), often featuring—with such content varying by program—high amounts of profanity, violence, sexual themes or nudity that
basic cable or over-the-air broadcast channels would be reticent to air because of objections from sponsors and the risk of them pulling or refusing to sell their advertising depending on the objectionable material that a sponsor is comfortable placing their advertising. (Incidentally, since the early 2000s, some ad-supported basic cable channels—like
FX and
Comedy Central—have incorporated stronger profanity, somewhat more pervasive violence and sexual themes, and occasional nudity in their original programs, similar to the content featured in original programs shown on HBO and other premium services, with relatively limited advertiser issues.) Mainly because it is not beholden to the preferences of advertisers, HBO has long been regarded in the entertainment industry for letting program creators maintain full
creative autonomy over their projects, allowing them to depict gritty subject matter that—before basic cable channels and streaming services deciding to follow the model set by HBO and other pay cable services—had not usually been shown on other television platforms. During the "Executive Actions" symposium held by
The Washington Post and
George Washington University in April 2015 (shortly after the launch of the HBO Now streaming service), then-HBO CEO Richard Plepler said that he does not want the network to be akin to
Netflix in which users "
binge watch" its television shows and film content, saying "I don't think it would have been a great thing for HBO or our brand if that had been gobbled up in the first week[..] I think it was very exciting for the viewer to have that mystery held out for an extended period." Pleper cited that he felt that binge-watching does not correlate with the culture of HBO and HBO watchers. Some of its original programs, however, have been aimed at families or children, primarily those produced before 2001 (through its original programming division and third-party producers both American and foreign) and from 2016 to 2020 (under its agreement with Sesame Workshop); children's programs that have aired on HBO have included
Sesame Street,
Fraggle Rock,
Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child,
A Little Curious,
Crashbox,
Babar,
HBO Storybook Musicals,
Lifestories: Families in Crisis,
Dear America and
The Little Lulu Show as well as acquisitions including
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
The Legend of White Fang,
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales,
Animated Hero Classics and
The Country Mouse and the City Mouse Adventures. Beginning in 2001, most of the family- or kid-oriented programs had migrated to HBO Family, with only a limited amount of newer family-oriented series being produced for either the primary channel or HBO Family since. (HBO Family continued to maintain a limited slate of original children's programming until 2003.) HBO ventured back into children's programming with its acquisition of first-run broadcast and streaming rights to
Sesame Street, a long-running children's television series that had previously aired on the program's longtime broadcaster,
PBS (and its
morning block), for the vast majority of its run, in a five-year programming and development deal with
Sesame Workshop that was announced in August 2015. Although struck with the intent to have the show remain on PBS in some fashion, the nonprofit
production company reached the deal due to cutbacks resulting from declines in public and private donations, distribution fees paid by PBS member stations, and licensing for merchandise sales. Through the agreement, HBO obtained first-run television rights to
Sesame Street, beginning with the January 2016 debut of its 46th season (with episodes being distributed to PBS, following a nine-month exclusivity window at no charge to its member stations); Sesame Workshop also produced original children's programming content for the channel, which also gained exclusive streaming rights to the company's programming library for HBO Go and HBO Now (assuming those rights from
Amazon Video,
Netflix and Sesame Workshop's in-house subscription streaming service, Sesame Go, the latter of which would cease to operate as a standalone offering). With the debut of HBO Max in May 2020, under contract renewal terms agreed upon between the studio and WarnerMedia in October 2019,
Sesame Street and other Sesame Workshop content would shift from the linear television service to the streaming-based HBO Max later in the year.
Movie library On average, movies occupy between 14 and 18 hours of the daily schedule on HBO and HBO2 (or as little as 12 hours on the latter, depending upon if HBO2 is scheduled to carry an extended "catch-up" marathon of an HBO original series), and up to 20 hours per day—depending on channel format—on its five thematic multiplex channels. Since June 6, 1992, HBO has offered weekly pay television premieres of recent theatrical and original made-for-cable movies on Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. (Event presentations that have followed the movie—such as boxing coverage or concerts—have caused rare variances in the preceding film's start time; if a live event was scheduled, before the December 2018 discontinuation of HBO's boxing telecasts, the premiered film would air after the event—in reverse order from the Eastern feed scheduling—on the Pacific Time Zone feed.) From June 1996 until September 2006, the presentations were marketed as the "Saturday Night Guarantee" to denote a promise of "a new movie [premiering] every Saturday night" all 52 weeks of the year. (HBO had highlighted said "guarantee" in promotions for the Saturday premiere night dating to January 1994.) Before settling on having Saturday serve as its anchor premiere night, the scheduling of HBO's prime-time film premieres varied between Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday, depending on competition from broadcast fare during the traditional network television season. First-run theatrical films debut on average from ten months to one year after a film's initial theatrical run has concluded, and no more than six months after their DVD or digital VOD download release.
COVID-19-related
postponements of newer theatrical releases by its distribution partners caused HBO to reduce the frequency of scheduled theatrical premieres in September 2020; since then, the Saturday 8:00 slot has been occupied by premieres of original specials and documentaries (scheduled at least once per month) and, since late December 2020, airings of older hit movies (mainly films released between 1979 and 2015) distributed under library content deals during gap weeks in the monthly premiere schedule. As of March 2025, HBO and sister channel Cinemax (as well as their associated streaming platforms) maintain exclusive licensing agreements to first-run and library film content from the following studios and their related subsidiaries: •
Warner Bros. Pictures Group (since January 1987); •
Subsidiaries: New Line Cinema (since January 2005),
Warner Bros. Pictures Animation (since January 2014),
DC Studios (since May 2017), and
Castle Rock Entertainment (since January 2003); •
Library content: Warner Independent Pictures (2003–2008 releases) •
A24 (since January 2024); •
Library content: (for post-2012 releases, since August 2022) HBO also maintains sub-run agreements—covering television and streaming licensing of films that have previously received broadcast or syndicated television airings—for theatrical films distributed by
Paramount Pictures (including content from subsidiaries or acquired library partners
Miramax,
Carolco Pictures,
MTV Films,
Nickelodeon Movies and
Republic Pictures, all for films released prior to 2013),
Universal Pictures (including content from subsidiaries
Universal Animation Studios,
DreamWorks Animation,
Working Title Films,
Illumination, and
Focus Features, all for films released prior to 2022),
Summit Entertainment (for films released prior to 2023),
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (including content from
Walt Disney Pictures,
20th Century Studios, and
Searchlight Pictures (except films co-produced by
Pixar), and former subsidiaries
Touchstone Pictures, and
Hollywood Pictures, all for films released prior to 2023),
Sony Pictures Entertainment (including content from subsidiaries/library partners
Columbia Pictures,
Sony Pictures Classics,
ELP Communications,
Morgan Creek Entertainment,
Screen Gems,
Revolution Studios, and former HBO sister company
TriStar Pictures), and
Amazon MGM Studios (including content from subsidiaries
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Orion Pictures,
United Artists, and former subsidiaries
The Cannon Group, and
The Samuel Goldwyn Company). HBO also produces made-for-cable television movies through a sister production unit
HBO Films, which traces its origins to the 1983 founding of HBO Premiere Films. Originally developed to produce original television movies and miniseries with higher budgets and production values than other telefilms, the film unit's first original movie project was the 1983 biopic
The Terry Fox Story. Differing from other direct-to-cable television films, most of HBO's original movies have been helmed by major film actors (such as
James Stewart,
Michael Douglas,
Drew Barrymore,
Stanley Tucci,
Halle Berry and
Elizabeth Taylor). The unit—which would be rechristened HBO Pictures in 1985—expanded beyond its telefilm slate, which was scaled back to focus on independent film production in 1984. The current HBO Films unit was formed in October 1999 through the consolidation of HBO Pictures and
HBO NYC Productions (created as HBO Showcase in 1986, and following its June 1996 restructuring, had also occasionally produced drama series for the network). Since 1984, HBO Films has also maintained an exclusive licensing agreement with HBO (later expanded to include Cinemax) for theatrical productions produced by the unit and, since HBO became co-owned with the film division through the 1989 Time-Warner merger, distributed through Warner Bros. Entertainment. Films to which HBO maintains traditional telecast and streaming rights are usually also shown on the Cinemax television and streaming platforms during their licensing agreement period (either after a film title completes its HBO window or transfers between services over certain months during the contractual period). Feature films from the aforementioned studios that maintain joint licensing contracts encompassing both services would typically make their premium television debut on HBO approximately two to three months before their premiere on Cinemax and vice versa.
Background HBO's relationship with Warner Bros. began with a five-year distribution agreement signed in June 1986, encompassing films released between January 1987 and December 1992; the estimated cost of the initial pay-cable rights was between $300 million and $600 million, depending on the overall performance of Warner's films and HBO/Cinemax's respective subscriber counts. Although the Warner deal was initially non-exclusive, a preemptive strategy if its co-owned rivals
Showtime and The Movie Channel (which elected not to pick up any spare Warner titles) sought full exclusivity over movie rights, the terms gave Warner an option to require HBO to acquire exclusive rights to titles covered under the remainder of the deal for $60 million per year (in addition to a guaranteed $65 million fee for each year of the contract). As a result of the 1989 Time-Warner merger, HBO and Cinemax hold pay-cable exclusivity over all newer Warner Bros. films for the duration of their joint ownership. HBO and HBO Max initially reached a pay television and streaming rights deal with A24 (which had partnered with HBO to produce selected original series and specials since 2017, beginning with the comedy special
Jerrod Carmichael: 8) on July 18, 2022, which gave them library rights to the independent studio's 2013–2021 releases.
Former first-run contracts Being the first pay-cable service to go national, for many years, HBO was advantageous in acquiring film licensing rights from major and independent studios; until Showtime, The Movie Channel, and other premium channels started beefing up their movie product to compete with HBO in the early 1980s, HBO's dominance in the pay-cable market led to complaints from many motion picture companies of the network holding monopoly power in the pay cable industry and a disproportionate advantage in film acquisition negotiations. During the early years of premium cable, the major American movie studios often sold the pay television rights to an individual theatrical film title to multiple "maxi-pay" and "mini-pay" services—often including HBO and later, Cinemax—resulting in frequent same-month scheduling duplication amongst the competing services. From its launch as a regional service, HBO purchased broadcast rights to theatrical movies on a per-title basis. The network pioneered the pay television industry practice, known as a "pre-buy", of buying the pay-cable rights to a movie from its releasing studio before it started filming, in exchange for agreeing to pay a specified share of a film's production costs; this allowed HBO to maintain exclusivity over film output arrangements and to save money allocated for film acquisitions. In June 1976, it signed a four-year exclusive deal with
Columbia Pictures for a package of 20 films released between January 1977 and January 1981, in exchange for then-parent company Time, Inc. committing a $5-million production financing investment with Columbia over between 12 and 18 months. Although HBO executives were reluctant at first to strike such arrangements, by the mid-1980s, the channel had transitioned to exclusive film output deals (now the standard among North American premium channels), in which a film studio licenses all or a proportion of their upcoming productions to a partner service over a multi-year contract. In 1983, HBO entered into three exclusive licensing agreements tied to production financing arrangements involving Tri-Star Pictures (formed as a co-production venture between Time, Inc./HBO, Columbia, and CBS Inc.), Columbia Pictures (an exclusivity-based contract extension initially covering 50% of the studio's pre-June 1986 releases with a non-compete option to purchase additional Columbia titles) and
Orion Pictures (encompassing a package of 30 films, in return for financial participation and a $10-million securities investment; the deal was indirectly associated with Orion's buyout of
Filmways the year prior, in which HBO bought pay television rights to the studio's films). All three deals were approved under a
U.S. Department of Justice review greenlighting the Tri-Star venture in June of that year. (The Tri-Star deal became non-exclusive in January 1988, although Showtime elected not to acquire titles from HBO's film rights lessees.) After the exclusive contract transferred to Showtime in January 1994, in July 1995, HBO preemptively signed a five-year deal with the studio that took effect in January 2000, in conjunction with a five-year extension of its existing deal with Columbia Pictures. (Columbia and TriStar's respective output deals with HBO ended on December 31, 2004, when
Sony Pictures transferred exclusive pay-cable rights for their films to Starz—which , holds rights to televise all recent releases from either studio through December 2021, after which in January 2022, under a five-year agreement signed in April 2021, Netflix would assume pay television rights to its newer Sony films—after HBO declined a request by Columbia during contract negotiations to allow the studio to experimentally distribute its theatrical films via streaming video during its contract window.) In February 1983, HBO signed an agreement with
Silver Screen Partners (a now-defunct joint venture between HBO, Silver Screen Management,
Thorn EMI and
The Cannon Group), in which HBO had right of first refusal in the film selection and received 5% of all profits derived from non-pay-cable distribution of the studio's films; the Silver Screen agreement concluded upon the studio's cessation in 1998. In early 1984, HBO abandoned the exclusivity practice, citing internal research that concluded that subscribers showed indifference to efforts by premium channels to secure rights to studios' full slate of recently released films from to distinguish their programming due to
VHS availability preceding pay-cable distribution in the release window. This change came after the firing of then-HBO chairman
Frank Biondi, reportedly for having "overextended the network in pre-buy and exclusive movie deals" as subscribership of pay-cable services declined. Biondi's replacement, Michael J. Fuchs, structured some of the subsequent deals as non-exclusive to allow HBO to divert more funding toward co-producing made-for-cable movies, other original programming, and theatrical joint ventures (via Tri-Star and Silver Screen Partners). On August 8, 1986, HBO had inked a non-exclusive agreement with
Lorimar-Telepictures to enable a package of various Lorimar-Telepictures theatrical films up to 1989, and Lorimar-Telepictures would be involved as a production partner on several made-for-HBO television movies, in exchange for worldwide distribution rights, excluding pay television, and the current plans for the agreement enables five to six films per year from Lorimar-Telepictures. In September 1986, the network signed a five-year agreement with MGM/UA Communications Co. for a package of up to 72 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and
United Artists films. Also that month, HBO signed a pay cable and home video agreement with film producer
Kings Road Entertainment, which would serve eight films, with the home video rights being assigned to subsidiary
HBO/Cannon Video, and the first film under the eight-picture agreement between HBO and Kings Road would be
Touch & Go, and would cost $65-$70 million. In November 1986, HBO signed an agreement with
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group for films that ran between 1987 and 1990, along with a three-year home video rights contract for sister label HBO/Cannon Video. In December 1986, HBO signed a pact with Soviet Union producer Poseidon Films, to cover Soviet-based films that covered a non-specific timespan, with the network controlling US and Canada rights. In July 1987, HBO signed a five-year, $500-million deal for exclusive rights to 85 Paramount Pictures films to have been tentatively released between May 1988 and May 1993. (This solidified an existing alliance with Paramount dating to 1979, for the non-exclusive rights to the studio's films.) Though this contract would herald the end of its embargo on new film exclusivity deals, HBO's then-CEO Michael Fuchs cited Showtime–The Movie Channel parent
Viacom (which, at the time, had debt in excess of $2.4 billion) for it having to obtain exclusivity for the Paramount package, which the studio approached HBO directly to bid. The Paramount package remained with HBO/Cinemax until December 1997; Showtime assumed the pay-cable rights to the studio's films in January 1998, under a seven-year deal reached as a byproduct of Viacom's 1994 purchase of Paramount from Paramount Communications, and held them until December 2008. (Shared rival
Epix—created as a consortium between Paramount/
Viacom, Lionsgate, and now-sole owner MGM—took over pay television rights upon that network's October 2009 launch.) In March 1995, HBO signed a ten-year deal with the then-upstart
DreamWorks SKG valued at between $600 million and $1 billion, depending on the total output of films and generated revenue during the contract, covering the studio's tentative releases between January 1996 and December 2006. By result of the 2004 spin-off of its animation arm
DreamWorks Animation into a standalone company, DreamWorks' pay-cable distribution rights were split up into separate contracts: in March 2010, Showtime acquired the rights to live-action films from the original DreamWorks studio (coinciding with the transfer of co-production agreement from Paramount Pictures to
Touchstone Pictures, then a Showtime distribution partner) for five years, effective January 2011. Then in September 2011, after HBO agreed to waive the last two years of its contract, Netflix acquired the DreamWorks Animation contract effective upon the December 2012 expiration of the HBO deal. (Before the 2015 launch of HBO Now, HBO required its studio output partners to suspend digital sales of their movies during their exclusive contractual window with the network; the Netflix deal was not subject to any distribution restrictions, allowing DreamWorks Animation to continue the re-sale of its films through digital download via third-party providers.) 20th Century Fox first signed a non-exclusive deal with HBO in January 1986, covering Fox films released between 1985 and 1988, along with a production co-financing agreement involving HBO original programs; the pact transitioned to an exclusivity arrangement with the 1988 renewal. In 1997, outbidding Showtime, HBO signed a deal with
Regency Enterprises to air its films after Regency signed with Fox. In 2003,
Lucasfilm announced that HBO, with help from 20th Century Fox won the pay cable rights to
Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones and
Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The first-run film output agreement with Fox was renewed by HBO for ten years on August 15, 2012 (with a provision allowing the studio to release its films through digital platforms such as
iTunes and
Amazon Video during the channel's term of license of an acquired film for the first time). While
The Walt Disney Company completed its acquisition of 20th Century Fox in March 2019, Disney maintains an output deal with its in-house streaming services
Disney+ and
Hulu for films produced or distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and its subsidiaries (which have not distributed their films over a traditional pay-cable service since the studio's agreement with HBO rival
Starz ended in 2015). Disney continued to honor the output deal with HBO until November 2021, when WarnerMedia and Disney announced that the deal would be expanded to the end of 2022, with an amendment that would allow half of 20th Century Studios' 2022 slate to be shared between HBO or HBO Max and Disney+ or Hulu during the pay-one window beginning with ''
Ron's Gone Wrong''. HBO's relationship with Universal first began in March 1984, when it signed a six-year non-exclusivity deal with the studio; in April 1990, Universal elected to sign a deal with CBS for the licensing rights to a package of the studio's ten 1989 releases, bypassing the traditional pay-cable window. The current Universal output deal—which began as an eight-year agreement that originally lasted through December 2010, assuming the studio's pay-cable rights from Starz—was renewed for ten years on January 6, 2013; the current deal gives HBO
right of first refusal over select Universal titles, allowing the studio to exercise an option to license co-distributed live-action films to Showtime and animated films to Netflix if HBO elects not to obtain pay television rights to a particular film. (Universal put a 50% cap on title acquisitions for the first year of the initial 2003–10 contract, intending to split the rights between HBO and Starz as consolation for the latter outbidding HBO for the Sony Pictures output deal.) On July 6, 2021, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group announced it would begin releasing its theatrical films on
Peacock after its exclusivity agreement with HBO concludes at the end of 2021, under a fragmented window (starting within 120 days of a film's theatrical release) through which Peacock would hold exclusive rights to Universal titles in bookending four-month windows at the beginning and end of the 18-month pay-one distribution period. Subsequently,
Amazon (on July 8) and Starz (on July 16) signed separate multi-year sub-licensing agreements, in which Universal films would stream on Prime Video and
IMDb TV in a 10-month non-exclusivity window during the middle of the period and air on Starz's linear and streaming platforms following the Peacock/Amazon windows; HBO would continue to release Universal's 2021 film slate under their existing contracts through 2022, while Netflix would continue to offer the studio's animated films thereafter. The first-run output deal with Summit Entertainment—which initially ran through December 2017, and replaced Showtime (which had exclusive rights to its films from January 2008 until December 2012) as the studio's pay-cable output partner when it initially went into effect in 2013—was renewed by HBO for an additional four years on March 1, 2016. (Summit is currently the only "mini-major" movie studio and the only studio not among the five core majors that maintains an exclusive output deal with HBO.) On March 2, 2021, it was announced that the deal with HBO through to the end of 2022 expires. In 1998,
New Line Cinema landed a deal with HBO to air its movie
Boogie Nights after its usual partner
Starz backed down due to runtime conflicts. Other film studios which formerly maintained first-run pay-cable contracts with HBO have included
American Film Theatre (non-exclusive, 1975–1977),
Walt Disney Productions (non-exclusive, 1978–1982),
The Samuel Goldwyn Company (non-exclusive, 1979–1986),
ITC Entertainment (non-exclusive, 1982–1990), New World Pictures (non-exclusive, 1982–1986),
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (non-exclusive, 1984–1989),
Hemdale Film Corporation (non-exclusive, 1982–1986; exclusive, 1987–1991)
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (non-exclusive, 1988–1991)
Lorimar Film Entertainment (non-exclusive, 1987–1990), and
Savoy Pictures (exclusive, 1992–1997).
Specials Alongside feature-length movies and other types of original programming, HBO has produced original
entertainment specials throughout its existence. Five months after its launch, on March 23, 1973, the service aired its first non-sports entertainment special, the Pennsylvania Polka Festival, a three-hour-long music event broadcast from the
Allentown Fairgrounds in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The network has cultivated a reputation for its
stand-up comedy specials, which have helped raise the profile of established comedians (including
George Carlin,
Alan King,
Rodney Dangerfield,
Billy Crystal and
Robin Williams) and served as the launchpad for emerging comic stars (such as
Dennis Miller,
Whoopi Goldberg,
Chris Rock,
Roseanne Barr,
Patton Oswalt,
Margaret Cho and
Dave Chappelle), many of whom have gone on to television and film careers. HBO premieres between five and seven comedy specials per year on average, usually making their initial broadcast in late Saturday prime time, following its weekly movie premiere presentation. Regular comedy specials on HBO began on December 31, 1975, with the premiere of
An Evening with Robert Klein, the first of nine HBO stand-up specials that the comic headlined over 35 years. Positive viewer response to the special led to the creation of
On Location, a monthly anthology series that presented a stand-up comedian's nightclub performance in its entirety and uncut; it premiered on March 20, 1976, with a performance by
David Steinberg. HBO's stand-up comedy offerings would eventually expand with the
HBO Comedy Hour, which debuted on August 15, 1987, with
Martin Mull: Live from North Ridgeville, a variety-comedy special headlined by Mull that featured a mix of on-stage and pre-filmed sketches. The
Comedy Hour typically maintained a virtually identical concept as
On Location, taking that program's place as HBO's flagship stand-up series and ultimately resulting in
On Locations phase-out after a 13-year run, ending with the premiere of
Billy Crystal: Midnight Train to Moscow on October 21, 1989. A spin-off, the
HBO Comedy Half-Hour, airing from June 16, 1994 (with the inaugural special
Chris Rock: Big Ass Jokes) until January 23, 1998, maintained a short-form format in which the special's featured comedian presented their routine—usually recorded live at
The Fillmore in San Francisco—only for 30 minutes. George Carlin headlined the most comedy specials for the network, making 12 appearances between 1977 and 2008; his first,
On Location: George Carlin at USC (aired on September 1, 1977), featured Carlin's first televised performance of his classic routine, "
The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television". Concert-based music specials are occasionally produced for the channel, featuring major recording artists performing in front of a live audience. One of HBO's first successful specials was
The Fabulous Bette Midler Show, a stage special featuring
Midler performing music and comedy routines, which debuted on June 19, 1976. It served as the linchpin for the creation of
Standing Room Only, a monthly series featuring concerts and various stage "spectaculars" (including among others,
burlesque shows,
Vaudeville routines,
ventriloquism and magic performances) taped live in front of an audience;
SRO premiered on April 17, 1977 (with ''
Ann Corio's 'This Was Burlesque''' as inaugural broadcast). For a time in the early 1980s, HBO produced a concert special almost every other month, featuring major music stars such as
Boy George and
the Who. After
MTV's successful rollout in 1981, the
Standing Room Only series began to produce fewer concerts, eventually ending on May 24, 1987 (with the premiere of the
Liza Minnelli concert special
Liza in London); HBO's concert telecasts also began to focus more on "world class" music events featuring artists such as
Elton John,
Whitney Houston,
Tina Turner and
Barbra Streisand, as well as fundraisers such as
Farm Aid. In recent years, concert specials have had an increasingly marginal role among HBO's television specials, limited to an occasional marquee event or the annual induction ceremony of the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (itself moving to
Disney+ in 2024).
Sports programming HBO broadcasts sports-related magazine and documentary series produced by HBO Sports, an in-house production division managed by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (previously through Time Warner Sports from 1990 to 2018) that also produced selected sports event telecasts for the channel from its November 1972 launch until December 2018. HBO Sports has been headed by several well-known television executives over the years, including its founder Steve Powell (later head of programming at
ESPN), Dave Meister (later head of the
Tennis Channel), Seth Abraham (later head of
MSG Network), On November 1, 1972, one week before HBO formally launched, Madison Square Garden granted Sterling the rights to televise its sporting events to cable television systems outside New York City. The first game under this arrangement was the New York Rangers-Vancouver Canucks NHL game that launched Home Box Office on November 8, 1972, and served as its inaugural sports broadcast. For the 1974–75 Rangers and Islanders seasons, HBO contracted MSG announcers for play-by-play and color commentating duties; this created a burden on announcers to fill what otherwise would be
dead air over the HBO feed of the games, since the service does not accept advertising, during the MSG Network's commercial airtime.
National Basketball Association (NBA) and
National Hockey League (NHL) coverage expanded with HBO's transition into a national satellite service, covering non-New York-based teams in both leagues (including the NBA's
Milwaukee Bucks,
Boston Celtics,
Portland Trail Blazers,
Golden State Warriors and
Los Angeles Lakers; and the NHL's
Los Angeles Kings) under individual agreements as well as select playoff games. (The NBA and NHL discontinued their HBO telecasts after their respective 1976–77 seasons. In May 1978, the
New York Supreme Court ruled then-Islanders and Nets president
Roy Boe had
breached an exclusive contract with Dolan's successor firm Long Island Cable Communications Development Co. through the HBO agreement and concurring contracts with other New York-area cable systems.) In 1974, the network acquired the rights to broadcast
World Football League (WFL) games from the
New York Stars (later relocated to
Charlotte as the Charlotte Hornets midway through the WFL's
inaugural season) and the
Philadelphia Bell; 18 WFL games aired on HBO throughout two seasons until the league abruptly folded midway through the
1975 season. In March 1973, HBO signed a $1.5-million contract to acquire the regional rights to a selection of
American Basketball Association (ABA) games for five years; notably, it carried the
1976 ABA Finals—the league's last tournament game before the completion of its merger with the NBA—a six-game tournament in which the
New York Nets beat the
Denver Nuggets four games to two. The merger of the two professional basketball leagues resulted in an early termination of HBO's ABA contract, which was originally set to expire on July 1, 1977, following the conclusion of the 1975–76 season. Through 1977, HBO carried other sporting events originating on the Sterling Manhattan/Manhattan Cable sports channel, including
World Hockey Association regular season and playoff games;
Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) tournaments (including the
Men's Ice Hockey Tournament and the ECAC Holiday Festival basketball tournament);
World TeamTennis; international
high school basketball invitationals; the
National Horse Show;
harness racing events from
Yonkers Raceway; equestrian,
roller derby and ice skating events; the
World Professional Karate Championships; the
Millrose Games track and field invitational; the
Westchester Kennel Club Dog Show; and
World Wide Wrestling Federation matches. (The regionalized sports focus was soon copied by other local subscription television services launched during the 1970s and early 1980s, most notably
PRISM,
ONTV and
Wometco Home Theater.)
NCAA Division I college basketball games held at Madison Square Garden and, after becoming a national service, other venues (including the
National Invitational Tournament and the Holiday Basketball Festival) were also carried by the network until the 1978–79 season. HBO also provided regional coverage of
New York Yankees baseball games for the 1974 season. New York independent station
WPIX (now a
CW affiliate) provided microwave signal pickup assistance to HBO for the telecasts; through its right of first refusal on game selection in its local television contract with the team, covering the team's away games, WPIX preempted planned coverage of four Yankees games that HBO was scheduled to carry that season. (The
Philadelphia Phillies reportedly rejected an offer for HBO to televise regular season games not shown locally on independent
WPHL-TV [now a
MyNetworkTV affiliate].) HBO's Yankees telecast spurred a complaint filed in June 1974 by
National Association of Broadcasters Special Committee on Pay TV chairman Willard Walbridge, who alleged they violated anti-siphoning rules barring pay television services from carrying live sports televised regularly on broadcast stations within two years. HBO representatives contended that regulatory interference over the game broadcasts was prohibited under the
First Amendment and that it offered only weekday games as WPIX held rights to selected Yankees weekend games; it also contended the anti-siphoning rules did not apply as there was not a per-program charge for the broadcasts. In September 1974, citing the games were unavailable on broadcast television, the FCC gave temporary authorization for HBO to carry no more than three of the team's remaining regular season games. HBO broadcast approximately 20 Yankees games in 1974 and 25 games in 1975. HBO attempted to negotiate the carriage of a weekly Thursday night MLB game package in 1976, but ultimately balked at the price being asked for by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn. From 1973 to 1976, HBO carried
Professional Bowlers Association (PBA)
tournament events; beginning with the Winston-Salem Open on June 10, 1973, the network aired around 25 PBA tournaments, including eight which HBO co-sponsored over those three years.
Dick Stockton,
Marty Glickman and
Spencer Ross served as
play-by-play announcers, and Skee Foremsky acted as the
color commentator for the bowling telecasts. With the assistance of programming consultation and acquisition firm
Trans World International, the expansion into a national service resulted in HBO expanding its sports coverage to include a broader array of events from the United States and Canada, including the
North American Soccer League (1976–1978), select
Amateur Athletic Union tournaments (1976–1981), select
LPGA golf tournaments (1976–1978), championship rodeo (1976–1978), the
USGF National Gymnastics Championships (1976–1981),
Skate Canada International (1976–1978), the
Canadian Football League (1976–1978), non-basketball NCAA tournaments including the
Men's Gymnastics Championships (1976–1978) and the
Division I Baseball Championships (1977–1978). Most of the aforementioned events ceased to be part of HBO's sports offerings in 1978, citing much of its sporting events generally had regional appeal, "don't repeat" and were readily abundant on commercial television. The NCAA regular season and tournament events remained on HBO until the 1978–79 athletic season, shifting over to upstart basic cable network ESPN beginning with the 1979–80 athletic season under an exclusive national cable deal with the organization; USGF, AAU and select non-NCAA invitational events remained on the network until early 1981, thereafter limiting HBO's sports rights to boxing and Wimbledon.
Wimbledon tennis In
July 1975, HBO inaugurated regional coverage of the
Wimbledon tennis tournament for its Mid-Atlantic U.S. subscribers. (That year saw
Arthur Ashe defeat defending champion
Jimmy Connors, 6–1, 6–1, 5–7, 6–4, in the
Gentlemen's Singles final, becoming the first Black male to win a Wimbledon singles title.) Initially, the HBO telecasts of the tournament mainly consisted of replays culled from other video sources (including the
BBC); HBO Sports began to employ an in-house team of commentators starting with the
1978 tournament. Throughout its tenure on the channel, Wimbledon coverage on HBO, which was the first to offer weekday tennis coverage on network television, consisted of singles and doubles events from the early rounds of the tournament;
NBC (which had the over-the-air broadcast rights to Wimbledon since
1969) maintained rights to the quarterfinal, semi-final and final rounds as well as weekend early-round matches. (Before the arrival of Wimbledon, HBO also carried the men's and women's rounds of the
U.S. National Indoor Championships from 1972 to 1976 and selected
WTA Tour events from 1977 to 1979.) On June 25, 1999, HBO Sports announced it would not renew its share of the Wimbledon television contract after the conclusion of
that year's tournament, ending its 25-year broadcast relationship with the
Grand Slam event. Seth Abraham, then-president of HBO Sports parent unit Time Warner Sports, said at the time that the decision was guided by a need to "refresh" its programming slate rather than because of issues with financial terms or stagnant viewership. (At the time of the announcement, HBO paid $8 million annually—under a $40-million deal over five years—to air the tournament.) Although ESPN,
Fox Sports Net and
USA Network each expressed interest in obtaining the cable package relinquished by HBO, Time Warner kept that portion of the Wimbledon contract within its corporate umbrella by signing an agreement for cable rights via
Turner Sports. Under the agreement,
coverage aired on
TNT and
CNN/SI (later moved to the now-defunct
CNNfn in 2002, after CNN/SI's shutdown) beginning with the
2000 tournament. In 2003, this package moved to
ESPN2; ESPN would later assume exclusive rights to the entire tournament in
2012. Professional tennis briefly returned to HBO on March 2, 2009, when it broadcast the inaugural edition of the now-defunct
BNP Paribas Showdown as a one-off special presentation.
Boxing HBO's sports coverage was long synonymous with its boxing telecasts, fronted by matches featured on HBO Sports' longtime flagship series,
HBO World Championship Boxing. Its first boxing telecast, on January 22, 1973, was "
The Sunshine Showdown", the world
heavyweight championship bout from
Kingston, Jamaica in which
George Foreman defeated
Joe Frazier in two rounds. Outside of high-profile matches held at exotic locales, most of the boxing events shown during HBO's early existence as a regional service were bouts held at Madison Square Garden; once HBO became a national service, boxing coverage began to regularly cover fights held at
The Forum (as part of its television contract with the Los Angeles Lakers and Kings (HBO also provided the first interconnected satellite demonstration broadcast on June 18, 1973, in which a heavyweight championship match between
Jimmy Ellis and
Earnie Shavers was relayed via
Anik A to a closed-circuit system at the
Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, and to a Teleprompter Cable system in
San Bernardino.) Boxing telecasts aired on various scheduled nights through 1979, and mainly aired thereafter on Fridays; boxing telecasts moved to Saturdays full-time in 1987. (All boxing events shown on HBO aired on average in two- to three-week intervals.) Through 1979, HBO also carried various
National Golden Gloves competitions, and from 1978 to 1979, carried the
National Collegiate Boxing Association championships. HBO expanded its boxing content to
pay-per-view in December 1990, when it created a production arm to distribute and organize marquee boxing matches in conjunction with participating promoters, TVKO (rebranded HBO PPV in 2001 and HBO Boxing Pay-Per-View in 2013); the first TVKO-produced boxing event was the April 19, 1991,
"Battle of the Ages" bout between
Evander Holyfield and
George Foreman. (TVKO signed Holyfield away from Showtime, which had been carrying his matches since its
Showtime Championship Boxing telecasts premiered in 1986, under an agreement with promoter
Dan Duva during Holyfield's reign as cruiserweight champion.) HBO expanded its boxing slate on February 3, 1996, when
HBO Boxing After Dark (titled
HBO Late Night Fights for its inaugural edition) premiered with title fights involving contenders in the
junior featherweight (
Marco Antonio Barrera vs.
Kennedy McKinney) and
junior bantamweight (
Johnny Tapia vs. Giovanni Andrade) classes. The program typically featured fight cards involving well-known contenders (generally those not designated as "championship" or "title" bouts), and up-and-coming boxing talents that had previously been featured mainly on basic cable boxing showcases (such as ESPN's
Friday Night Fights). A second franchise extension,
KO Nation (which ran from May 6, 2000, to August 11, 2001), attempted to incorporate
hip-hop music performances between matches involving up-and-coming boxers to attract the show's target audience of males 18 to 24 (later broadened to ages 18 to 34) to the sport; former
Yo! MTV Raps VJ
Ed Lover was the "face" of the show and acted as its ring announcer. (Internal research stated that males aged 18–34 accounted for 3% of boxing viewership, while men 50 and older made up 60% of the sport's audience.)
KO Nation drew low ratings throughout its run, even after it was moved from Saturday afternoons to Saturday late nights in January 2001. HBO Sports then refocused its efforts at attracting younger viewers through
Boxing After Dark. To court the sport's Hispanic and Latino fans, the network's boxing franchises expanded to HBO Latino with the January 2003 premiere of
Oscar De La Hoya Presenta Boxeo De Oro, a showcase of up-and-coming boxers represented by the De La Hoya-founded
Golden Boy Promotions. A second boxing series for HBO Latino,
Generación Boxeo, premiered on the multiplex channel in April 2006. On September 27, 2018, HBO announced it would discontinue its boxing telecasts after 45 years, following its last televised match on October 27, marking the end of live sports on the network. (Two additional
World Championship Boxing/
Boxing After Dark cards would follow that originally scheduled final broadcast, airing respectively on November 24 and December 8, 2018.) HBO's decision to bow out of boxing telecasts was due to factors that included the influx of sports-based streaming services (such as
DAZN and
ESPN+) and issues with
promoters that hampered its ability to acquire high-profile fight cards, and resulting declining ratings and loss of interest in the sport among HBO's subscribers. Also factoring into the move was HBO parent WarnerMedia's then-recent ownership transfer to AT&T, and the network's efforts to focus on its scripted programming; network executives thought that "HBO [was] not a sports network." Since then, although it no longer produces sporting event telecasts, HBO Sports has continued to exist as a production unit for the network's sports magazine shows and documentaries.
Magazine and documentary series Since 1977, HBO has offered documentary- and interview-based weekly series focusing on athletes and the world of athletics. On September 22, 1977, HBO premiered the channel's first original weekly series, and its first sports-related documentary and analysis series,
Inside the NFL, a program that featured post-game highlights and analysis of the previous week's marquee
National Football League games (using footage provided by
NFL Films) as well as interviews with players, coaches and team management. The program was one of the first studio shows on cable television to offer weekly NFL game reviews, predating the launches of similar football review shows on ESPN and other sports-centered cable networks.
Inside the NFL would go on to become the network's longest-running program, airing for 31 seasons until it ended its HBO run in February 2008. (After HBO canceled the program,
Inside the NFL was subsequently acquired by Showtime, under arrangement with
CBS Sports, formally moving to the rival premium channel in September 2008.) The network would build upon the concept behind
Inside the NFL through the debuts of additional sports talk and documentary programs: the
Major League Baseball-focused
Race for the Pennant (1978–1992),
HBO Sports Magazine (1981–1982),
On the Record with Bob Costas (2001–2005) and its revamped iteration
Costas Now (2005–2009), and
Joe Buck Live (2009). Another program built on similar groundwork,
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel—which eventually became the network's flagship sports
newsmagazine—premiered on April 2, 1995, and lasted for 29 seasons before ending on December 19, 2023. The hour-long monthly series (originally airing quarterly until 1999), hosted by veteran television journalist and sportscaster
Bryant Gumbel, regularly received positive reviews for its groundbreaking journalism and typically features four stories centering on societal and athletic issues associated with the sports world, investigative reports, and interviews with famous athletes and other sports figures. ,
Real Sports has received 33
Sports Emmy Awards (including 19 for Outstanding Sports Journalism) throughout its run, as well as two Peabody Awards (in 2012 and 2016) and three
Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards. Of note, the show's 2004 Sports Emmy win for "Outstanding Sports Journalism" and 2006 duPont–Columbia University Award win for "Outstanding Broadcast Journalism" was for a half-hour hidden camera investigative report—guided by human rights activist
Ansar Burney—into slavery and torture in secret desert camps in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE), where boys younger than age 5 were trained in
camel racing. The segment uncovered a carefully hidden
child slavery ring that bought or
kidnapped hundreds of young boys in
Pakistan and
Bangladesh, who were then forced to become camel jockeys in the UAE and questioned the sincerity of U.S. diplomatic pressure on the UAE, an ally to the United States, to comply with the country's ban on children under age 15 from participating in camel racing. The documentary brought worldwide attention to the plight of child camel jockeys in the Middle East and helped the Ansar Burney Trust convince the governments of
Qatar and the UAE to end the use of children in the sport. In 2001, HBO and
NFL Films began to jointly produce the documentary series
Hard Knocks, which follows an individual
NFL team each season during
training camp and their preparations for the upcoming football season. ==Branding==