List of HBO international channels

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HBO

Type	Pay television network
Programming
Picture format	1080i (HDTV) (downscaled to 16:9 576i for the SDTV feed)
Ownership
Owner	Home Box Office, Inc. (managed by WarnerMedia International)
Parent	WarnerMedia
Sister channels	Cinemax Red by HBO (2010-2021)
Links
Website	www.hbo.com

Home Box Office (HBO)—originally established on November 8, 1972, as a premium cable television network in the United States—has, since 1991, expanded into a family of international pay television channels presently owned by WarnerMedia subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. and operated through sister subsidiary WarnerMedia International or owned by third-party media companies through programming and brand licensing partnerships.

In countries where an HBO-branded network does not exist in its own right, the network's programming is licensed instead to domestic pay television services or through a basic cable channel; several of these are permitted to refer to themselves as the "Home of HBO", such as with Sky Atlantic and Now TV in parts of Europe, Fox Showcase and Binge in Australia, and OCS in France.^[1][2]

Like its flagship U.S. channel, most of the international channels maintain a subscription-based model, in which they do not accept traditional advertising and offer programming that includes theatrically released motion pictures, original television programs (both licensed by the U.S. service and produced for individual regional channels), made-for-cable movies, documentaries, and occasional stand-up comedy and concert specials. While HBO maintains international distribution rights for its original programs, the terms of its licensing agreements with film studios only retains it the right to broadcast them within the United States and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, therefore film rights for the international channels must be licensed separately.^[3]

Branded services[]

The Americas[]

Brazil[]

HBO Brazil was launched in 1991 as a partnership between Grupo Abril's TVA, Time Warner and Sony. It was developed as an analogue pay channel, but used UHF broadcast frequencies and ran its programming for nine hours each day. After the Brazilian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Grupo Abril sold its share in the network to Time Warner.

Canada[]

Canadian rights to HBO-owned and -distributed programming are held by Bell Media, the mass-media unit of telecom company Bell Canada. (By coincidence, Bell Canada was formerly part-owned by current WarnerMedia parent company AT&T until 1975, however Bell's relationship with HBO predates AT&T's 2018 acquisition of WarnerMedia.) Programming is offered through Bell's Crave pay television service, which includes an HBO-branded multiplex channel that launched in 2008 and features the U.S. channel's original programming; the over-the-top Crave streaming service; and Bell's French-language pay service Super Écran, along with occasional airings of library programs on the company's basic cable channels. Outside of the required brand licensing to use the HBO trademarks and logo, HBO parent WarnerMedia does not have an ownership interest in these services, and, as such, the Canadian service is the only HBO channel that WarnerMedia does not operate.

The HBO multiplex channel was launched as HBO Canada on October 30, 2008 as a joint venture between two regional Canadian pay television services: Astral Media-owned The Movie Network (now Crave), which operated in provinces east of the Ontario-Manitoba border, and Corus Entertainment-owned Movie Central, which operated in provinces west of the aforementioned delineated border as well as the territories. Prior to that date, both services had regularly featured HBO programming on their other channels, however some programs had aired on (or were later syndicated to) other broadcast or basic cable channels.

Most Canadian licensing rights to HBO programming have been consolidated under Bell Media after the company assumed television rights and established streaming rights to the HBO back-catalog following the completion of its acquisition of Astral Media in 2014. The Canadian HBO service would become tied to a single national pay service, when, on November 19, 2015, Corus Entertainment reached an agreement with Bell in which it would agree to cancel Movie Central's pay television license, and sell the network's distribution rights and subscriber base to Bell for C$211 million, in order to allow The Movie Network to expand into Western Canada. In turn, Bell expanded its programming agreement with HBO, obtaining exclusive distribution rights to the HBO programming library on its linear television channels, video-on-demand and digital platforms. Bell assumed full control of HBO Canada on March 1, 2016, coinciding with TMN replacing Movie Central on providers in the western half of Canada upon commencing distribution as a national service.^[4][5]

Crave also holds domestic linear pay television and streaming rights to the majority of theatrical films that premiere in the U.S. on HBO, although films from Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Studios and Universal Pictures air primarily on Crave, Starz and their corresponding linear multiplex channels; the Canadian HBO linear channel exclusively airs the network's original series and films.

The Caribbean[]

HBO Caribbean offers English-language broadcasts of HBO material geared towards the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean audience. HBO launched the channel to replace the Spanish foreign-language feed, which formerly served the English-speaking Caribbean market. HBO Caribbean is carried on cable providers such as Flow, Digicel, Canal+, Cable Bahamas and Multi-Choice TV.

Latin America[]

Ooriginally known as HBO OLÉ, HBO Latin America Group originated in 1991 as a partnership between Venezuelan broadcaster Omnivisión and HBO. The channel was initially available to cable and satellite providers across Central and South America, and the Caribbean. HBO OLÉ reached a break-even profit by 1993, and had about 500,000 subscribers by 1994; that year, a secondary channel was launched, along with a Portuguese feed for Brazil.^[3] Sony, The Walt Disney Company and Universal Pictures later joined the partnership. Omnivisión eventually sold its share in the channel to Time Warner.

Asia[]

Southeast Asia[]

HBO Asia was originally co-owned by UIP Pay TV, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner and SingTel. Based in Singapore, it launched in 1993 and initially served only the Philippines and Thailand. HBO Asia expanded to incorporate feeds in Mandarin Chinese, Thai and Bahasa, encompassing 23 countries across Asia.^[3]

Europe[]

Netherlands[]

Following the 31 December 2016 closure of HBO Netherlands (see below), cable television provider Ziggo, as part of its acquisition of the broadcasting licenses to the network's content for the Dutch market, began offering HBO programs on its video on demand service Ziggo Movies & Series XL.^[6]

Eastern Europe[]

HBO Europe was originally launched in Hungary in 1991 on KábelKom, a company that was created in 1991 as a joint venture between HBO parent Time Warner and United Communications International to provide cable television service to Hungary. The channel's programming was originally transmitted via microwave relay (in the same manner as the flagship HBO channel in the United States from 1972 to 1975), due to the economic issues in using satellite delivery to a country with a small population. By late 1994, HBO Hungary had a subscriber base of 160,000 households. Since that point, HBO has expanded into 15 European markets including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia.^[3]

Spain[]

HBO programs were previously broadcast in Spain on pay television service Canal+.^[7]

In 2016, HBO launched a standalone streaming service called HBO España, which is the Spanish equivalent of HBO Now and HBO Nordic.

Portugal[]

From September 2015 to December 2018, local premium television channel TVCine e Séries broadcast the majority of HBO's programs. A separate Portuguese streaming service, HBO Portugal, was launched in 2019.^[8] According to a platform press release, in 2019, Game of Thrones and Chernobyl were the most viewed programs on HBO Portugal.^[9]

Nordic region[]

On August 15, 2012, HBO announced plans to launch HBO Nordic, a multiplatform video distribution service serving Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland that was created through a joint venture with Parsifal International.^[10][11] The video on demand service launched in December 2012.^[12] HBO programming also airs in Iceland on Stöð 2.^[13]

Former services[]

Asia[]

India, Pakistan and the Maldives[]

HBO South Asia was a regional pay television network operated by Home Box Office Inc.'s HBO Asia unit, which aired theatrical feature films from America and South Asia. The network ceased operations on 15 December 2020^{[clarification needed]}, after which, WarnerMedia entered into an agreement with Disney India to offer HBO's library of original programming through over-the-top streaming service Disney+ Hotstar (owned by Disney's Star India subsidiary).

Europe[]

Netherlands[]

HBO Netherlands launched on 9 February 2012 over cable television provider Ziggo, as a three-channel multiplex service featuring HBO original programs airing on a day-behind basis from their initial United States broadcast. A local version of HBO Go was also made available to subscribers of the service. HBO Netherlands was available to subscribers of Ziggo, KPN, UPC, XS4ALL, Telfort, fibre providers Glashart Media and Vodafone Glasvezel and satellite broadcaster CanalDigitaal.

On 28 September 2016, HBO Netherlands announced that it would cease broadcasting on 31 December 2016.^[14]

Program licensing partnerships[]

Europe[]

United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Italy and Ireland[]

Under a long-term agreement until 2024 between HBO and Sky Group (Comcast), Sky operates Sky Atlantic which broadcasts the majority of HBO's programming. Sky Atlantic is available in the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland and Italy.

In February 2011, Sky Atlantic launched on the Sky platforms in the United Kingdom and Ireland, which maintains a distribution deal with HBO to offer the majority of its programming on the channel. Under the five-year agreement between HBO and Sky, newer HBO programs will air on Sky Atlantic before airing on other television channels within the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Prior to 2011, TG4 in Ireland had a long-term agreement to broadcast HBO programming free-to-air, this ceased following the creation of Sky Atlantic.

France[]

On November 13, 2008, Orange launched Orange Cinéma Séries (renamed OCS on 22 September 2012), a five channel package, dedicated to movie and series. Under a long-term agreement between HBO and OCS, the channel OCS City Génération HBO was launched on 10 October 2013, to distribute all HBO programmes in France.

Since 2019, OCS have the complete exclusivity on the HBO catalogue, previously Canal+ and Canal+ Séries rebroadcast most of the HBO shows with French dub.

Russia[]

From 2017, Amedia broadcasts majority of the HBO programming in Russia and the CIS territories.^[15][16]

Greece and Cyprus[]

Nova has a long-term agreement with HBO to broadcast the majority of HBO programs in Greece and Cyprus. In 2015, Nova Cinema announced a new output deal with HBO to broadcast the biggest hit series in Greece and Cyprus at the same time with the US. The fifth season of Game of Thrones premiered on 12 April 2015 on HBO and Nova Cinema at the same time.

Belgium and Luxembourg[]

On February 19, 2018, Belgian telecommunications company Proximus announced a deal to carry the BeTV bouquet for the distribution of HBO programs in French-speaking Belgium.^[17] HBO shows airs on Be 1, nicknamed Home of HBO.

For Flanders, Telenet's Play More broadcasts HBO shows.

Baltics[]

Since September 1, 2018 telecommunications provider Telia has added HBO streaming services to their networks in Estonia and Lithuania,^[18][19][20] while Tet carries HBO programming in Latvia.^[21]

Malta and Gozo[]

Maltese cable television network Melita More shows several HBO programs in Malta and Gozo since 2011.

Asia[]

Malaysia[]

Astro Citra is a Malay version of HBO Asia^{[citation needed]} it is featuring local & international movie and come Malay and English subtitles.

Middle East and North Africa[]

After signing a deal with HBO, on 1 February 2016 U.A.E.-based subscription television provider OSN launched OSN First HD - Home of HBO, a premium channel that specifically airs HBO productions including movies, serials and others.^[22][23] Since OSN's services are pan-regional, the channel is available to multiple countries in the MENA region.

As of 2019, most HBO programs are broadcast on OSN Series First's "HBO Night" block following a rebrand of OSN's channels.

Japan[]

In Japan,  [jp] reached a deal to carry HBO and HBO Max original programs in Japan beginning in April 2021. This replaced a previous deal between HBO and Amazon Prime Video Japan.^[24]

Africa[]

HBO signed an exclusive deal with the South African streaming service Showmax owned by MultiChoice Group. This deal includes exclusive streaming rights to every single HBO title and new episodes to be added the same day they air in the United States.^[25]

The HBO shows are broadcast on Canal+ for the Francophone market.

Oceania[]

Australia[]

Fox Showcase, an Australian premium television service that launched in 1995, began airing HBO original programming in 2012, through a licensed distribution arrangement with subscription television provider Foxtel. Prior to this, limited HBO content was broadcast through the now-defunct Movie Network, which was founded by HBO (through Time Warner), Village Roadshow, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Disney–ABC International Television. HBO Originals are also available on demand via Foxtel services Foxtel Now and Binge.

New Zealand[]

Sky Movies in New Zealand originally operated as a joint venture between HBO and Sky Network Television. The channel was renamed HBO in 1993; Time Warner later sold its share in the service to Sky in 1998, and renamed it back to Sky Movies. HBO programming is currently shown by Sky channel SoHo, and its subscription streaming service Neon, in New Zealand.

International on-demand services[]

In 2005, the HBO Mobile wireless service launched via Vodafone in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and South Africa, and via SK Telecom in Korea in 2006. In 2006, HBO's subscription video-on-demand service HBO On Demand launched in Israel on HOT, marking the first standalone HBO service to be offered outside the United States. The service launched in the United Kingdom in 2007 via BT Vision, TalkTalk TV and Virgin Media, and then rolled out to Cyprus in 2008 through PrimeTv of PrimeTel Ltd. In Australia, HBO Originals are carried on Foxtel's Binge service.

References[]

External links[]

• HBO UK
• HBO Asia
• HBO South-Asia
• HBO GO Brazil
• HBO Bulgaria
• HBO Europe
• HBO Nordic
• HBO Croatia
• HBO Hungary
• HBO Latin America
• HBO Macedonia
• HBO Poland
• HBO Portugal
• HBO România
• HBO Serbia
• HBO Spain
• HBO Czech Republic
• HBO GO Slovakia