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Purchasing HBO without getting cable?

Maithanet

By Maithanet,
in Open Discussion (SPOILERS)

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Maithanet Council Member

Maithanet

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I am going to want to watch Game of Thrones, and am willing to pay HBO some reasonable fee in order to make that happen. However, at the moment I do not have cable. The rates to get cable in Northern Virginia were simply ridiculous for someone that doesn't watch much TV, so I just rely on Netflix and what I can stream from the internet.

Is there any way for me to purchase HBO on either my computer or my tv without ordering the whole ripoff cable package that I will barely use?

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Asha—Not Yara! Council Member

Asha—Not Yara!

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Well, HBO's website says you need to contact your cable, satellite or telephone company to get HBO. I know you say rates are high in your state, but it couldn't hurt to call your cable company and ask them what your options are for HBO. Sometimes companies have cheaper plans that they don't advertise on their website, but they'll sign you up if you request for it by the phone (at least that's what happened with me and Verizon, but that was my cell phone plan. I have no idea if that's a possibility for cable companies.)

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iheartseverus Council Member

iheartseverus

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Also, some satellite providers (like DISH, which I have in WV) will give you 3 free months of a premium channel like HBO when you sign on for the service. DISH for one is pretty generous with these 'free trial' offers. I have 2 premium channel pkgs, HBO and Showtime, and everytime I call DISH to cancel one or the other, they give me another 3 months of that pkg for free. Worth talking to your provider.

Edit: Also, when you order a premium channel like HBO, you actually get multiples of that channel. For example, with DISH when I ordered HBO, I have 8 HBO channels, all showing different stuff. And usually, when a big new series starts, they'll show it on HBO 1 the first night, HBO 2 the next night, etc etc, so you can watch the same show every evening all week if you want to.

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Maester May Freerider

Maester May

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Also, some satellite providers (like DISH, which I have in WV) will give you 3 free months of a premium channel like HBO when you sign on for the service. DISH for one is pretty generous with these 'free trial' offers. I have 2 premium channel pkgs, HBO and Showtime, and everytime I call DISH to cancel one or the other, they give me another 3 months of that pkg for free. Worth talking to your provider.

Wow, how did you pull that off? I just had to renew my HBO/Showtime last month to close out Boardwalk Empire and Dexter (and catch awesome GoT footage of course). Maybe I'm not sweetalking the "Peggy" that I always deal with over the phone with DISH enough?

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iheartseverus Council Member

iheartseverus

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Wow, how did you pull that off? I just had to renew my HBO/Showtime last month to close out Boardwalk Empire and Dexter (and catch awesome GoT footage of course). Maybe I'm not sweetalking the "Peggy" that I always deal with over the phone with DISH enough?

LOL, I don't know--maybe 'Peggy' doesn't like you? Actually, what I do on the phone is 'sound poor.' Yes, one can 'sound poor,' a bit stressed, a touch distressed, as in 'I just can't afford this, something's gotta be done...' And bang, they give me 3 free months. Of course, next time I call them, if somebody named 'Peggy' answers the phone, I'm hanging up without a word!

Seriously though, perhaps its a state-to-state thing? West Virginia is considered the 2nd poorest state (after Mississippi), so perhaps they're more lenient here, in order to keep people signed up at all. Just don't know..

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aimlessgun Council Member

aimlessgun

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Special cable packages are definitely something you can bargain on the price. And convincing the seller you simply can't afford a price is an effective bargaining technique :)

especially for something like television packages, since it costs them nothing to activate for you, so any money you put up is a profit.

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Ran Council Member

Ran

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Funnily enough, HBO's president has just remarked out loud that they're willing to move into forcing cable distributors to offer HBO ala carte -- just that channel and nothing else -- because they feel that many cable distributors are encumbering subscribers with dead weight, and so putting them off getting HBO because they have to take junk they don't want.

So, who knows, in a year or two you might be able to just get HBO and nothing else from a provider.

Not that it helps with this, of course...

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Arbor Gold Council Member

Arbor Gold

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Edit: Also, when you order a premium channel like HBO, you actually get multiples of that channel. For example, with DISH when I ordered HBO, I have 8 HBO channels, all showing different stuff.

And still, there's nothing on!

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Maithanet Council Member

Maithanet

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Thanks for the responses everyone. I'll keep my eyes open for something like what Ran was talking about, becuase I very much doubt that a cable provider is going to be flexible enough to sell be HBO and cable for a price I'm willing to accept (I couldn't get any deal even half reasonable when I moved into my current place).

I would think that I'm not the only person who wants to pay for HBO but unwilling to shackle themselves to a cable provider.

Or of course, ask a BWB neighbour to host a watching party.

Given BWB's presence in the DC area, that might not be a bad option. In addition, a few family members on the other side of the beltway have HBO, so I might be visiting them more once the show starts.

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emmank Squire

emmank

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This could actually be quite a problem for HBO. The target audience of Game of Thrones is both unlikely to have cable, and very tech-savvy. I don't actually know how I will watch it - maybe at someone else's house. I wish they'd sell individual episodes to play on the XBox, as that's how I watch everything.

Yes! My husband and I were actually just talking about this.... we don't watch TV, and satellite (which is our only option) is very expensive here. I would be more than thrilled to support this show by paying online for an episode or SOMETHING that doesn't involve having to get a satellite dish installed and paying for a package of TV that I will never use except for 1 hour a week.

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Cuellar Council Member

Cuellar

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Brienne - it is channel conflict. The cable providers would in turn try to screw HBO if they tried to eliminate them and offer HBO via the internet or something.

I am suprised though that HBO doesn't sell episodes via PPV or something on itunes (they may already).

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aeu Council Member

aeu

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I tried to sign-up for one of those focus groups advertised here a while back, but was rejected straight away as I don't have cable. HBO clearly aren't interested in any means of content delivery but traditional cable.

They are interested. But all of these alternative means are relatively new, so HBO is trying to figure out what to do about them, along with everybody else.

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