So, with my digital cable I have a gazillion channels, and I love it. What we don’t have anymore is HBO, Cinemax, or Showtime. I got rid of them long ago. It’s not that I can’t afford it, it’s that the movies they play are old. I spent the last 5 days in a Hotel because I was out of town on business. I’m looking at the HBO guide book, and it’s advertising the movies it’s going to have on next month. I rented these movies for 99 cents at the grocery store over 6 months ago.
When I was a kid we were one of the first families to have HBO in this state (anyone remember TV Q? This was like 1976) and it was so cool to get these uncut movies on your television set.
But nobody had VCR’s back then. Now I look at the HBO guide and I think, so what? I’ve seen all these movies months ago. They’re already old.
A lot of their movie lineups don’t seem geared at jazzing people up with a feeling of “Ooh! It’s a new movie! I have to see this!”, but rather, “Ooh, this is a cool movie. I have two hours to kill. I’ll watch it again!” In other words, they’re trying to snag an audience of convenience rather than trying to dazzle their audience with new releases.
Besides, the original programming - Sopranos and Six Feet Under (mostly the latter) - are worth more than the movies.
As SPOOFE says, the original programming is pretty much the raison d’eter for HBO these days. I too recall having HBO in our house when we were young, looking forward to the Saturday night premiere movie every week. Even then, the original programming was a highlight of those channels. Showtime in the mid 80’s gave us Bizarre, it’s spinoff the Super Dave Osborne Show, and It’s Gary Shandling’s Show (far superior to his Larry Sanders Show on HBO a decade later.) The style of original programming on these channels has changed, specializing these days in the serial drama. Popularity for these shows seems to have rocketed off the map, mostly due to more people having HBO these days. Still, the original programming has always been a focus, it’s just developed further today.
I think the death of premium movie channels started when the price of a movie on VHS dipped from $80 (yes, it was once really that high) down to about $15 where it is now. That made rentals and purchases of movies on videotape far more popular. Prior to that time, the popular thing to do was tape the new movies off of Showtime or HBO, develop a huge video library, and copy and trade the tapes. People still do this, but alot of video libraries (for people still in the VHS era who haven’t converted to DVD) that I see at people’s homes consist entirely of factory pre-recorded titles. When I was young we only had one or two videotapes that we bought like that.
It’s all about being lazy and hating BallBuster.
I have to be really desperate to see a movie to rent it it before it comes to HBO/Cinemax/Showtime/etc. There’s always been a 6 month gap between video release and tv debut. I can handle that.
And of course there’s Six Feet Under, the Sopranos and Sex in the City-Sunday is the only night I actually plan to watch TV.
It always surprises me when the new blockbuster that’s running on HBO on Saturday is the DVD that I bought 2 months ago and that’s sitting on top of the player.
They do occasionally show movies that I wouldn’t bother renting, but would like to see. Like The Dish, or But I’m a Cheerleader, which were both pretty good. Even crap like Red Planet, which I’m glad I didn’t rent. SO that’s worth it to me. A Tivo’s really good for picking these out BTW.
Actually, I find Encore and its genre channels, like the Mystery Channel and the Action Channel, to have much more interesting and offbeat films, like Electric Dreams, Lifeforce, and Miracle Mile. I watch HBo for its original programming, but not so much for movies.
I keep HBO for Real Sex and American Undercover Documentaries. The movies don’t really do much for me, and I don’t watch Sex and The City etc. But those documentaries fucking kick ass.
Also, HBO Comedy is good. Funny movies and great stand-up. (Much better than Comedy Central stand-up…)