Broken Speaker Platform Reviews: Home Box Office

    HBO has become a regular household brand when it comes to streaming or television. They have a ton of different content to offer, from original shows to mainstream movies and everything in between. I've had an HBO subscription ever since I got on board with Game of Thrones during season 5 and I am sure that many of your experiences started the same way too. This is a pretty big platform review to start, but here at Broken Speaker Podcast we are always up for a challenge.

    Isn't it always funny that acronyms eventually become more popular that the original name? If you referred to a company as International Business Machines, most people would have to pause to figure that one out. But if you just outright called it IBM then everyone knows what you are talking about. Same thing with Home Box Office and HBO. Home Box Office means nothing to me, but when you are talking about HBO I start to envision a brand behind it.

    My first introduction to HBO was back in college with the one month free trial that people would get every September. I can't actually remember if we ever paid for a subscription back then, and we really only used it to watch movies. Back then however, nothing was on demand and we had to check the TV schedule to see what was playing on HBO Comedy or HBO Action. I don't have a cable subscription but I would assume that they have a mixture of this format and the on demand format today.

    When I first decided to give Game of Thrones a shot, I ran into a little bit of a problem. HBO has two different apps and for the life of me I still can't figure out why they keep them separate. If you download the HBO Go app then you are using you're cable service to access content and you cannot buy a stand alone subscription. It took a little bit of internet searching but I finally realized that what I wanted was HBO Now, which doesn't have any link to a cable provider. While this isn't a huge deal, still a little bit of a inconvenience. 

    My original goal was to cancel the HBO subscription after catching up on Game of Thrones, but then I discovered Silicon Valley, Westworld, and the decent selection of movies that they have (I just want to mention that I won't be talking about these shows specifically just in case we decide to do episodes on them for Broken Speaker Podcast). I ended up keeping my subscription, but I will admit that there have been a few times where I debated canceling it. Game of Thrones was pushed back by almost an entire year, Silicon Valley was six months, and then the movie selection was just lacking. But alas, due to what would probably be determined as laziness I never canceled.

    The way that HBO releases their shows also brings up a great debate, which Greg and I have hashed out in an earlier Broken Speaker Podcast episode. HBO chooses to go with the one episode per week model, which in my opinion is the best when it comes to complex shows like Game of Thrones. However I would like them to maybe reevaluate releasing one episode per week on other shows like Silicon Valley which I think is just as good if watched as a single binge session. I don't think this is ever going to change though, because HBO seems to be true to their pedigree and while they have become a major streaming site they are still loyal to their cable roots.

    HBO also has a great track record with miniseries, the most popular being Band of Brothers. I didn't actually know this was a HBO miniseries because I watched the episodes on DVD originally. Since having an HBO subscription though, I have watched the Band of Brothers series a few times through which led me to watching The Pacific as well. Most recently they came out with Chernobyl which I again really enjoyed.

    The movies that HBO premiers are their site are generally top tier in terms of relevance. They have a lot of movies that people want to see once they are out of the theaters and they also do a great job curating a variety of older movies so that you can cycle those in as well. There are two things that I am not a fan of however, the first being is how HBO goes about showing their offerings for movies. Compared to other platforms I personally think that it is clunky and getting searching for the movie you want to see makes you feel bored. Secondly when they announce the just added movies, they don't show all of their movies they just added. Usually they focus on the newest hottest films but they sometimes add a classic that I won't know is there for months until I decide to scroll through every single movie. I would again not say this is a huge deal, but it is an inconvenience and HBO could improve. I will point out that searching for movies on a smart TV over a phone seems to be a little bit better.

    I know that they have stand up and documentaries on the site, but I don't really get into it. I wouldn't say that I have ever seen a stand up comedian that I enjoy watching have a special on HBO so I just use other streaming services for that. Hard Knocks is probably the only docu-series that I have watched regularly, but it is usually to fill time right before football season or because I saw a meme about a specific moment during the show.

    HBO has a lot of content for a lot of different people, which is why I think they were able to evolve from an addition on a cable subscription. The real question that I have for HBO is can they keep going at this rate even when their top shows are ending. After the Game of Thrones finale, there were tons of memes all over the internet about people canceling their subscriptions. What is going to be the next Game of Thrones caliber show that HBO releases? I wouldn't bet against them on this however, they have produced many high caliber shows in the past including The Sopranos, Deadwood (check out the Broken Speaker Podcast episode here), The Wire, True Detective, True Blood and more.

    So that's it, my review on the HBO platform. Now you are probably thinking to yourself "but Brian, you promised us that there would be a rating system" and you would be right. I want to make sure that I build a useful rating system, so I am going to complete the four platform reviews and then write follow up blog posts that gives you all the ratings. I want to hear your thoughts on HBO, did I miss something big? Am I going about this all wrong? Let me know in the comments below and remember to check back regularly for all the new stuff we have going on with Broken Speaker Podcast.