WEBVTT - The HBO Story: Part One 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.720 In Touch with Technology with tech Stuff from how stuff 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:14.400 Works dot com either everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.720 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Boltman, and we're going 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:22.079 to take you on a mega epic adventure. Uh. It's 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.160 going to be a three parter, something we haven't done 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.520 very frequently. But as we started researching this particular topic, 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.440 we discovered there's just so much interesting stuff that affects 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.680 so many different industries and technologies. We couldn't really wrap 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.760 it up into a single episode or even a two parts. 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.519 It is truly a special presentation. It in fact is 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.479 a special presentation. And if you, like me, are a 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.440 child of say the seventies and eighties, you might remember 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.640 seeing special presentation on a certain pay television channel, HBO 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.120 Home Box Office. That is what we are talking about 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.800 for the next three episode because there's so much history 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.360 involved and and I never realized it before we started 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:07.200 researching this, but if it weren't for some of the 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.240 people who were working in HBO's early days, we might 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.400 not have cable TV or or satellite cable as we 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.240 know it, right. Yeah, for example, all those other basic 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.640 cable stations that you are familiar with may not have 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.400 existed had it not been for some of the efforts 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.960 on the part of multiple players in the story, and 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:33.000 also some of the other issues everything from scrambling signals 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:37.320 to piracy to streaming online. All of these things come 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.240 into play with HBO and and original content as many 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.280 many of you statistically probably no yes, whether whether you 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:49.960 are subscribers or the other type. So we're going to, um, 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.800 we're gonna have to journey back in time. So uh yeah, 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.440 I know, we just we just tested it off recently, 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.960 but it's going to get a workout. Let's file into 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.400 the way back machine back in, is it tons out? 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.639 We're gonna have to go far back, way before HBO 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.920 was founded, all the way back to nineteen twenty two. 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.680 So let's let's just set that right here and uh 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:20.120 push the button. Lauren pushed, All right, here we are 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:26.280 sunny nineteen two. That's when Henry Loose and Brittain hadn't 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.080 decided to U, you know, pack it up. They had 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.880 been working for the Baltimore News and they decided they 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.440 didn't want to do that anymore. They cut their ties, 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.120 said their goodbyes, and went to the Big Apple. Because 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.440 if you can make it there well you know the rest. 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.799 So they had this crazy idea they wanted together to 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:49.519 launch a brand new magazine with the title of Time, 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.160 and they got about eighty five thousand dollars in startup 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.880 money from initial stockholders and uh AND incorporated in that 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.079 November of That's right, So the very first issue of 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:05.960 the magazine launched on March third, nineteen twenty three. Now, 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.040 this company would actually debut lots of other titles. It 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.800 wasn't just Time. Time was the starting point. But then 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.840 they also launched Fortune in nineteen thirty, which was a 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.840 year after the great stock market Crash of nineteen twenty nine, 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.080 when a lot of people lost their fortunes. Uh. They 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.040 also launched Life in nineteen thirty six. The magazine Life, 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.600 the actual you know, point of existence, had existed for 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.680 billions of years we know, yes, at least on Earth, 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.560 perhaps longer in other places, but the magazine itself didn't 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.160 come into existence still nineteen thirty six. And then, of 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.960 course the most important magazine of all time nineteen fifty four, 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:49.840 Sports Illustrated. I've never read a single issue I know 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.720 of Sports, but it's pretty it's pretty big. All of 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.960 these are pretty big. The company has certainly become a 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.040 print media giant, and I mean, at the time was 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.840 a print media giant and would go on to become 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.080 an other media giants, right, because why why would you 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.960 limit yourself to print media? They wanted to diversify. So 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.560 moving into the nineteen sixties, just just come along with us. 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:14.760 The nice thing about the way back machines that lets 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.720 us go forward in time much faster than backward. We 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.320 don't even have to get into it. So nineteen sixties, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.839 Time Incorporated starts looking at a way of getting into 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.839 this crazy television business to branch out from print media, 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.080 and so as doing that, they looked at a little 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.760 company called Sterling Communications, and they bought up a twenty steak. 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.480 In that company, there was a man running that by 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.880 the name of Chuck Dolan, who um was it was 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:47.000 a bit of a visionary, Yeah, oh, huge visionary. He's 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.039 talked about sometimes. I mean despite the fact that he's 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.560 kind of unassuming and and pretty soft spoken and doesn't 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.000 really he's not a public figure the way that some 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:57.840 of our other tech visionaries are. I mean he's not. 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.240 He doesn't have the stage presence at say a Steve Job, 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.560 but Nonetheless, without him, we probably would not have cable 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.480 TV as we know it. Um He was born in 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.720 Cleveland and served in the Air Force, dropped out of 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.960 John Carroll University and started up a company that edited 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.120 sports reels for TV syndication. Eventually he sold that and 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.680 moved to New York where he founded Sterling in nineteen Yeah, 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.360 that little company where he was adding sports footage. He 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.200 did that out of his home. He and his wife 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.520 and his wife in Cleveland in their house, ran this 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.200 entire company, um and and sold it for enough money 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.640 that he was able to found a cable television company. 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.840 And at the time, cable was not what it is today, right. Yeah. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.320 In fact, cable at that time was really meant to 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:44.280 deliver broadcast television as an over the air television. This 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.240 is the stuff that normally you would put an antenna 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.320 on top of your TV or perhaps on top of 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:52.040 your home or apartment building, and you would get signals 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.680 over the air which would then run down to your television. 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.640 A lot of people considered this free television. It's not 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.880 like you had to subscribe to it. However, it's add 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.640 supported TV. But sure, and I mean, nothing's nothing's free 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.320 there and yeah, so even public television that exists on 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:13.000 on grants and and donations, the other commercial TV that 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.880 existed through ads supported. But anyway, the issue was that 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.960 in rural areas you couldn't necessarily get a good signal 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:22.719 because if you did not live near a transmission tower, 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.520 the transmission tower might not have enough power to put 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.039 out there so that you could get the same sort 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:30.840 of content that you could if you lived closer. Al Right, 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:35.159 So cable stations were really just ways of getting TV 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.800 regular old broadcast airway of TV out to those rural 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.360 areas exactly. It didn't exist in big cities like New York, right, 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.160 because the thing about New York was that you happen 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.200 to live really close to all those transmission towers. Yeah, 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.240 everything was being broadcast out of the Empire State Building basically. 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.440 Except the thing is is that New York has other skyscrapers, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:55.640 and if you lived stay behind the skyscraper, you might 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.920 not I mean, you absolutely wouldn't be able to get 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.360 that signal from that tower. Right. If you got a 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.360 signal at all, it would be really weak, so you 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.560 would have lousy reception, which meant that there were people 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.400 in New York who might live a few blocks away 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.720 from the Empire State Building, but their reception on their 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.040 televisions were worse than what you might see in the 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.480 suburbs in New Jersey. You can get it better in Jersey. 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.640 Why would why you come on? Look, you gotta pay 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:19.600 to get out of Jersey. Why would you have to 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:21.560 You know that that was the way they got you. 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:23.960 You have to pay to get out. So then you're like, well, 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:25.920 I get better TV over here. Anyway, I'll just stay 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.000 in Jersey. I apologize everyone for starting Jonathan on that. 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.560 I promise I won't I won't continue. I apologize as 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.040 well that at any rate, this is exactly the case. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.640 So what Dolan thought was, why don't I bring cable 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.480 into the city. That way we can have the same 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.360 single over cable and even if you live right behind 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.120 a skyscraper, you're still going to have great reception. Sure. 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.000 The thing is is that it's really I mean, it 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.760 was and still is really expensive to latest cable. We're 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:54.960 talking copper cable at the time. By the way, fiber 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:57.760 aptics wouldn't come into the picture until the nineteen eighties. Yeah, 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.640 and not only that, but it was in New York. 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.120 They had had a blizzard several decades earlier that had 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.640 wiped out a lot of the power lines and and 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.560 telephone lines, and as a result, city official said, hey, 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.280 you guys, you're gonna have to bury this everything so 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.520 that way we will never have an outage on this 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.560 scale ever again, which meant that the cable that Dolan 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.160 was gonna lay would have to be underground. Two. This 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.000 meant that per mile of cable minimum, you'd have to 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:30.840 spend ten thousand dollars per mile. Now in New York 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.200 to get those uh apartment buildings, those high rise apartment 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.920 buildings wired, you have to build a cable through the 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.560 apartment building to eat with a branch to each unit, right, 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:43.960 that's the only way you could do it. That made 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.360 it go up to around three hundred thousand dollars per mile. 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.680 And this is in nineteen sixties dollars. We're not talking 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.920 about adjusting for inflation here, so this is really expensive stuff. 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.880 And Dolan, you know, this was a very ambitious plan. 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.480 And Dolan saw the long tail, right. He saw that 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.760 this could be profitable, but it was going to require 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.120 a lot of work, and it perhaps more work than 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.120 he anticipated when he first got into the business. Yeah, 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.840 Sterling almost certainly would have gone bankrupt if it hadn't 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.240 been for Times investment in them at that at that 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.679 time exactly. So I'm just gonna say the word time 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.040 as many times. There's no way of avoiding it. Uh, 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.040 just wait till Warner gets in there, because I use 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.600 that word all the time. Nineteen seventy one. So, still 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.160 trying to make Sterling Communications a profitable company, Dolan begins 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.599 to brainstorm ideas that would convince subscribers to join on 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:39.000 to this, to to actually willingly become a customer of cable, 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.800 because again, you have to convince people, Hey, I know 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.320 you could get this free over the air on your antenna, 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:46.960 but the reception is lousy. Pay for it on cable, 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.000 you'll get it. You'll get a great experience. And the 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.760 people who they were contacting, we're saying, but why would 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.000 I do that? Yeah, I mean, yeah, the stuff I 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:56.680 get over the air is lousy. But if it's going 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.440 to be the same thing, just better quality on cable, 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.319 I feel like I'm getting the rough end of the 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:04.319 deal here if I have to pay for it. So 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.720 he says, what what can I do to differentiate cable 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:12.719 to make it more more attractive. Ah, what if we 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.839 made a special channel just for cable. It's not for 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.800 over the air, Only people who are subscribers to the 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.720 cable will get it. And it has to be something 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.520 that's really really compelling, something maybe that carries a lot 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.880 of sports with it. That was his first approach, and 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.760 he called this idea the Green Channel. He he referred 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.000 to it and as the Macy's of television. And this 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.040 was not an entirely new idea. Actually, our CIA had 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.400 created a radio network specifically to give people a reason 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.319 to go out and buy our Cia radios. So why 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.000 would you buy something where there's no content? This is 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.800 sort of the argument people have about four K televisions 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:51.599 right now. Why would you go out and get a 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.400 four K TV if there are no same argument? That 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.280 argument has been around ever since we started making this 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.880 kind of tech. Oh yeah, and and understand that at 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:03.719 the time there was some programming on cable stations, but 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.360 most of it was either extremely load budget or or 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.439 very local like a clock streaming the local time, or 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.960 just weather reports, or at the very best, public access. 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.839 Although that didn't become a mandatory thing. Uh, you know, 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.120 branching into the Wayne's World kind of kind of end 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:23.120 of the deal until after the FCCS Telecommunications Act of two, 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.560 wherein they said that any station that had more than 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.800 subscribers had to have public access content. Yeah this time, 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.160 but but not even that. I mean we we did 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.400 not even have Wayne's World, so that it was not 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:37.640 party time, It was not excellent, it was not and 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.439 nor Anton Jessip. We had no doctor Anton jessep that. No, 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.199 I don't want to imagine a world where there's no 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.920 Anton Jessip. But so so it was considered a very 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.800 commercially unviable space exactly. Yeah, this was really again just 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.959 an alternative to deliver broadcast over the air TV. It 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.600 wasn't thought of as a way to create new types 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.920 of content, and also very regionalized, very much spread out 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.240 and separated. Like we didn't have these massive cable companies 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.079 that had enormous networks. You had all these different, smaller 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.880 regional companies that serviced little rural areas. And so even 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.160 if you wanted to launch a big idea, like a 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.880 big program, let's say that it's a company that's out 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:18.800 in the middle of nowhere, in the in the middle 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.719 of a state, where there's hardly anything else, and they think, 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:23.760 we've got a great idea of our show. We're gonna 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.160 produce a show. They might only be able to deliver 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:28.600 that show to a very small audience because it wasn't 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.080 a nationwide network. So very different world than the one 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.360 we live in now. So how do you make the 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.520 Green Channel a must buy product? You know, we had 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.760 a lot of these attempts to make pay television channels before, 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.439 but they had failed. And again that over the air 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.520 for free model was very compelling. Well, nineteen seventy two, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.880 Dolan decides to pitch this idea to Time, which had 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.319 invested in Sterling Communications. Right. He wound up talking with 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.079 one of their lawyers, a man named Jerry Levin, and 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.520 the two convinced the company to take on the idea. Yeah, 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.559 and so, fifty years after the founding of Time Incorporated, 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.719 remember those back in n Now we're in nineteen seventy two, 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.560 Time Incorporated launches a new cable television channel. They had 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.719 taken the Green Channel idea. They renamed it after a 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.520 series of long and arduous meetings, and they figured that 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.559 this name wouldn't really stick for that long because it 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:24.480 was pretty lame. Yeah, this was supposed to just be 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.360 a temporary kind of placeholder home box office. That was 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.800 the name HBO for short. They thought, well, we'll home 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.439 box office until we figure out something better. They never 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.160 figured out anything better and they went with it. Uh 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.560 So this was again the idea originally was a paid 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:43.439 television premium channel that would carry uncut, uncensored movies that 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.400 you wouldn't find on broadcast television, plus a few live 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.360 sports events from Madison Square Gardener. Right, So again very 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.040 new thing. The cable television itself did not have that 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.280 many subscribers, and they time was not ready to commit 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.200 full on with this, you know, and so the well, 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.400 let's find a test market, let's look around and see 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:04.959 if we can figure out what we can, you know, 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.200 how to develop the strategy to make sure it works 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.760 before we really throw in. And they did have on 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.280 their side the fact that TV execs were eager for 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.839 a way to make television unfree. I mean, you know, 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:17.760 if if you can turn a profit on something, that's 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.120 always better than giving it away for free. And um, 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.440 and stealing cable is a lot harder than it is 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.040 to steal signals out of thin air, right, Yeah, if 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.520 you were just broadcasting this over the air, then obviously 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.640 anyone with an antenna could get at it. There'd have 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:31.920 to be some other kind of scrambling thing. And we'll 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:35.200 talk about scrambling later on in another episode. Sure, but okay, 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.520 So that so this test market wound up being um 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.560 in Pennsylvania and New York. Yeah, so the very first 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:46.880 one was just Wilkes bar Pennsylvania, tiny community like people. Yeah, 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.120 we're talking. I mean, I think they had four hundred 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.520 subscribers at first. I think three five was the estimate. 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.200 I saw a title so even even fewer than that. 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.200 But the reason for that, well, they wanted to do 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.720 Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania mainly because is one of the big 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.800 partnerships that Time had struck was with the NBA, and 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.240 the idea was to be able to cover NBA games 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.240 live so that people who wouldn't have access to that 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.360 kind of programming could actually watch it live and that 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:14.320 would be really exciting and be a good reason to 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.840 subscribe to the service. However, the NBA, like a lot 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:23.320 of different sporting organizations, has blackout rules where where they 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.680 don't want you to uh to publish too broadcast broadcast 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:30.080 a game within a certain radius of the stadium where 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.960 it's being played exactly. And so if they had launched 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.480 in say Alan Town or Philadelphia, that would have been 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.840 in the radius for all the Philadelphia teams. So they said, well, 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.720 why don't we do Wilkes Bar. It's just outside that radius. 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:46.120 We're not going to be hit by any blackout dates. 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.400 It will be the best possible experience and that will 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:51.080 give us the test that we need that can be 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:56.640 used as word of mouth. So subscriptions six dollars per 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:02.440 month for HBO. So uh. It goes live on November eighth, 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.680 nineteen seventy two. And the very first movie carried on 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:11.360 HBO was titled Sometimes a Great Notion, a fantastic film 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.840 about logging. Yeah, Henry Fondo was in it and Paul 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.000 Newman was in it, and it was really a story 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.680 about individualism and being able to strike out on your 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.800 own and to survive against odds both from nature and man. 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.800 And I'm making it sound way more exciting than what 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:30.960 it really was. But yes, that's that was the movie. 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.160 And then the other thing that they aired was a 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.360 hockey game, not an NBA after a Yeah, the NBA 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:39.680 does not tend to play in hockey games. Uh. This 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.040 was a game featuring the Rangers against the Canucks, and 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.360 I know you're all dying to know who won, Rangers 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.760 five to alright, spoilers. Yeah, well, you know, for those 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:52.880 other people who are using way back machines of their 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.120 own to go back into nineteen seventy two and watch 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.520 all those games, forget I said that. So back in 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.000 these early years, the service would only be on the 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.000 air for a few hours each day. It was not 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.720 a twenty four hour channel, all right. They would sign 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:07.800 off at a certain point. Yeah. I actually watched the 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.000 little cartoon that used to play at the very end. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.200 It's very cute. This is actually like several minutes long. 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.600 It wasn't like a little twenty second thing. But it's 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.000 a cartoon showing, you know, lights going out in the 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.359 city and setting an alarm clock and fluffing a pillow. 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.879 And this is all cartoonish, right, all cartoons. It was 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:29.280 essentially saying good night, good night. Yeah, almost almost had 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.840 a night veil moment again there. Boy, it just creeps in, 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:36.640 doesn't it. So meanwhile, on the back, on the corporate 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:38.800 side of things, So so that's what's going on on 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.560 the actual television. On the corporate side of things, you 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.879 have Time Incorporated, and they had to carve out space 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:50.480 for this new uh, this new enterprise HBO. So originally 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.560 they started making space in their own office building, and 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.719 Time Incorporated its headquarters in New York, which was already 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.840 a bustling office. Yeah. So that meant that as h 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.320 began to grow, and it grew pretty quickly, Uh, it 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.159 meant that they had to start getting creative finding places 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.560 to stick people. So departments wouldn't necessarily be all set together. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:11.879 You might have a department head who's on a different 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.040 floor from the rest of the office. Uh. There were 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.639 stories about people having to find an office space in 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.800 an old broom closet, or or four or five people 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.000 all sharing a common office area that used to be 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.159 a meeting room. That kind of stuff, things that we 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.320 can kind of identify with here at how stuff works. 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.040 But the interesting thing was that this actually promoted a 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.560 kind of camaraderie among the office workers. They had a 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.639 closeness and kind of a party atmosphere too. Is this 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.119 idea that we're all in it together, We're doing this 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:45.440 exciting thing. A lot of the people who were working 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.520 there were very young. It was. It was a very happening, 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.240 very startup kind of vibe in despite the fact that 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.800 it was being owned and operated by this very large 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:56.240 company exactly that had been in business for fifty years, 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:58.040 and yet it had a very start up feel. That's 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.720 a very good way of putting it. So yeah, very exciting, 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.000 and uh, we can't wait to talk about where it 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.520 went after that first year. I mean, we've only made 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.560 it up to the actual year in which HBO premiered. 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:11.520 We've got so much more to talk about. But before 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.240 we get into that, let's take a quick break to 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:19.120 thank our sponsor. All Right, we're back and it's nineteen. 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.240 This was the year that Time bought HBO outright from 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:25.960 Chuck Dolan and the rest of the Sterling investors and 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:28.960 was But poor Chuck Dolan, he must have i mean, 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.680 he must have really missed out on everything, right that 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.800 just uh yeah, no, no, not but the the the 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.399 opposite of that. In fact, if we can set the 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:39.440 way back machine to be the way forward machine for 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:41.760 just a second, I'll just get on in here and 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.000 you just you keep going. I'm gonna I'm gonna work 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.879 on this, Okay, Okay, So Dolan would would use this 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.320 buyout money to found Cable Vision, which would make him billions. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:52.959 Today it is the largest cable provider in the New 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.840 York metro area. UM along with its spinoffs like AMC 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:59.760 and i f C, the two very popular channels which 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:05.800 you might know from everything from using your remote control, Yeah, well, 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:10.560 walking Dead and etcetera. Madman UM and his resulting properties 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.640 like Madison Square Garden and the New York Nixon Rangers. 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.120 This from a guy who had a little business out 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:21.600 of his kitchen right in Cleveland. Cleveland. Boy, so he's 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.680 he's still kicking as at this podcast. He's worth some 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.600 three point six billion. He has six children who UM 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.639 more or less run a lot of his empire. And 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.520 it's a huge success story. And someday he's a very 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:36.840 interesting person and I would really like to do more 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.880 on him and or Cable Vision and or all of that. Yeah. 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.399 But okay, back in ninety three, I just got this 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.760 thing fixed to go forward. Oh forget it, we'll just 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:50.240 stay here, Okay, alright, So, uh, nine seventy three, Jerry 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.880 Levin continues working with the HBO brand, but it only 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.000 has about eight thousand subscribers. And uh, that's spread across 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.160 maybe fourteen different cable opera rating systems, all of which 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.040 are still in Pennsylvania. Yeah, it still hasn't moved into 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.320 New York yet. So the big, the big irony here 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.320 is that it was possible because of the stake in 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.360 Sterling Communications, but that was based solely in New York, 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.960 and Sterling Communications did not yet carry HBO. It was 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:21.000 all still in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, that same year, nineteen seventy three, 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.399