A standalone HBO Go service is the holy grail for cordcutters. It means liberation from cable forever. It's never going to happen. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes just told his investors in no uncertain terms that cordcutters don't exist, and that forcing people to pay for cable to get HBO will work. Sadly, he's probably right.
According to Bewkes, the idea that people hate cable and can't wait to get rid of it is a myth. We'd like to think that everyone's content to just settle into a service like Netflix, but the numbers aren't there to support that theory. Check out this doozy of a quote from the Time Warner chief:
But the whole idea that there's a lot of people out there that want to drop multichannel TV, and just have a Netflix or an HBO - that's not right. Look for the data, you won't find them.
But won't Time Warner pretty please let us just subscribe to HBO Go alone? We don't care about getting the Food Network! We just want Game of Thrones! Tough luck.
Time Warner has been unbelievably stubborn about licensing its HBO content to streaming services like Netflix, and the company's quarterly earnings report seems to indicate that it's paying off. AllThingsD reports that HBO and Cinemax together added more 7 million subscribers over the last six months. For an already established brand that's very impressive. It's also good for Time Warner's business model, which is based on, you know, making people pay for cable. Looks like HBO will remain one of the last good reasons to keep paying that hefty monthly bill. [AllThingsD]