HBO will no longer offer its series through Amazon Prime Video next year

By Christine Persaud May 3, 2017

hbo amazon streaming michael k williams as omar little the wire — Image used with permission by copyright holder

HBO wants to place more eggs into its own HBO Now stand-alone digital service basket and thus, the network will not be offering its slate of programming to Amazon Prime Video subscribers come 2018.

Richard Plepler, chairman and CEO, confirmed the decision during Time Warner’s first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, noting that HBO programming would no longer be available for streaming on Amazon starting May 2018, once the existing licensing agreement expires.

Currently, Amazon Prime Video subscribers can access all episodes of legacy HBO series like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire through the service. With HBO Now already offering the network’s entire library of original content dating back as far as 30 years, naturally, HBO would prefer viewers watch it there. Though Plepler does credit Amazon with helping gain momentum for the HBO Now streaming offshoot service. It is also worth noting that HBO content is also available through the DirecTV Now service launched by AT&T. (Time Warner, which owns HBO, is currently in the middle of a merger of AT&T.)

HBO’s original deal with Amazon was inked back in 2014 and presumably served as a strategy to get cord-cutters interested in HBO series, in hopes of enticing them to sign on to a cable or satellite subscription to gain access to more HBO programming. But then, the HBO Now subscription video-on-demand service was launched in 2015 as its own stand-alone service to augment the television network. It pushed the provider directly into the cord-cutting game, effectively competing directly with services like Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Netflix by allowing anyone to view current and library HBO titles without a cable or satellite TV subscription. As at February, HBO Now reported having about 800,000 subscribers.

Bottom line: Enjoy binging those old HBO favorites on Amazon now, as they won’t be available in exactly one year. And if you were hoping to binge newer HBO series, like Girls, which just ended, and Game of Thrones, on Amazon Prime, don’t hold your breath. You will have to pivot over to HBO Now for that.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Christine Persaud

Contributor

Christine has decades of experience in trade and consumer journalism. While she started her career writing exclusively about…

Entertainment

3 underrated Amazon Prime Video movies you should watch this weekend (April 19-21)

Three men stand in front of table in Air.

Finding a great movie to watch can, somewhat perversely, be more difficult now than it was in an era when you had fewer choices. Now, you have access to a ton of streaming services, and each of those streaming services has plenty of great films, as well as a few terrible ones. Amazon Prime Video is one of those services filled to the brim with great movies, so much so that it can be hard to pick one.

We've selected three great, underrated movies that are now available on Prime Video, but that may not seem like obvious movies to pick. If you're looking for something great to watch, but don't want to wade through all the choices, these three movies are an excellent place to start.
Air (2023)
Skydance | Air | Official Trailer (2023)

Entertainment

Like the hit HBO series The Sympathizer? Then watch these 3 great shows right now

Hoa Xuande holds a burning letter in The Sympathizer.

While there’s always plenty of great TV on Max, it’s not often that a master director lends his talents to a limited series. Park Chan-wook, the director behind great movies like Oldboy and The Handmaiden, is doing just that with The Sympathizer, a new limited series based on the novel of the same name.

This isn’t the first time that Park has directed TV (more on that below), but The Sympathizer seems poised to be one of the big shows of the spring. The series follows a spy who moves to a refugee camp in the U.S. near the end of the Vietnam War, and continues collecting intelligence for the Viet Cong. If you loved the show and are looking for something similar, here are three shows you should consider.
Slow Horses (2022-)
Slow Horses — Official Trailer | Apple TV+

Entertainment

Like Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout series? Then watch these 5 great movies right now

A woman looks out at an industrial landscape in Fallout.

Amazon Prime Video is wishing everyone a happy apocalypse this month as all eight episodes of Fallout season 1 hit the streaming servic e. But even if this show is a breakout hit that gets an immediate second season order, it could be two years or longer before new episodes arrive. So if you're looking for more postapocalyptic stories, then you've come to the right place.

However, the thing that you need to remember is that there's almost nothing else that shares the exact tone of Fallout, which can be really funny without slipping into farce. Regardless, some of our picks clearly inspired the Fallout games and the TV show. And you can see for yourself as we run down the five great movies that you need to see if you like Fallout.
Six-String Samurai (1998)