What's this? This is an unbiased just-the-facts news timeline ('newsline') about HBO, created by Newslines contributors. Become a contributor

HBO

HBO8 posts
Latest News view > Click for Biography view
25 Mar, 2015

Cancelled

Drops Product0 Comments

HBO cancels Looking. The series will be wrapped up with a special; however, it is unknown when this special will air. The second-season finale averaged 298,000 same-day viewers.

After two years of following Patrick and his tight-knit group of friends as they explored San Francisco in search of love and lasting relationships, HBO will present the final chapter of their journey as a special. We look forward to sharing this adventure with the shows loyal fans.

9 Mar, 2015

HBO Now launch

Product Release0 Comments

HBO announces HBO Now, a standalone streaming service available exclusively on Apple TV as a new channel. HBO Now is also available on iPhone, iPad, and iPod as an app. HBO’s entire catalog of movies and TV shows can either be streamed through HBONow.com or on all Apple devices through the channel or the app. The service costs $15 a month, and it can only be subscribed to via the HBO Now app on an Apple device.

15 Oct, 2014

To perform at Cubby Bear

0 Comments

The Foo Fighters announce that they will perform live at the Cubby Bear in Wrigleyville in Chicago on Friday following a screening of the premiere episode of the HBO series Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways. HBO is live streaming the concert on Facebook. HBO:

Dave’s heartfelt passion for this project is contagious and his talent as a musician and filmmaker is undeniable. We are excited to go on this journey with him and the Foo Fighters for this insider’s look at how regional music inspired them to create their own new music.

12 Oct, 2014

Sonic Highways trailer

0 Comments

The trailer for the Foo Fighter’s HBO travelogue Sonic Highways is released . The trailer reveals many of the guest stars featured in the HBO show such as Willie Nelson, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Kiss’ Paul Stanley, Dolly Parton and Public Enemy’s Chuck D. The series premieres on HBO on October 17th.

Basically, the process is we come to a city and we spend a week and we start recording an instrumental, because I interview all of these different musicians from that city. I talk about the regional relevance of the music from that city, the cultural influence, that ‘made-for-the-sound’ of the music. There’s no way that you can tell the history of a city’s music in one hour, so we have to do it in a way that relates to the band and goes from point A to point B and becomes a song.

Foo Fighters Sonic Highways: A Conversation with Foo Fighters - Extended (HBO)

21 Aug, 2014

HBO defends adult content

Gives Talk0 Comments

At the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, HBO’s president of programming, Michael Lombardo, defends scenes of sex, violence, and rape in Thrones:

I personally don’t see myself as a libertine.  I don’t think [graphic scenes] have ever been without any purpose. Dan [Weiss] and Dave [Benioff] are two very sober, thoughtful men. They have books as a map. Which involve wars, violence, sex. We have certainly not given them an edict or a note that they need to tone down the sexual content in the show.

According to Lombardo, HBO is a responsible broadcaster and those in programming have two responsibilities: to be responsible and not to have gratuitous sex and violence.  He also points out that as an adult, pay-TV channel, HBO has more freedom than free-to-air broadcasters.

As long as I feel that [violence] isn’t the reason [people] are watching the show, that it isn’t a show trying to attract viewers with sex and violence, I am not going to play police.

22 Apr, 2014

Demands removal of screenshots

0 Comments

HBO accuses ScreenCapped.net, a site which hosts user-uploaded movie and TV screenshots for fan-created artwork, of copyright infringement and demands the removal of the Game of Thrones and True Blood screenshot libraries.  In response, a petition has been launched on Change.org supporting ScreenCapped and asking HBO to reconsider it’s decision.

The fans and staff of Screencapped.net ask that you remove the DMCA against Screencapped.net so that the site may continue to provide HBO fans with high quality screencaps for non-profit use.

Mar 2014

‘Beautiful Death’

0 Comments

HBO collaborates with 360i, a digital marketing agency, and artist Robert Ball to put together the Beautiful Death series, which chronicles the show’s iconic deaths by turning them into art. Ball says the images only take a few days to put together and are completely digital, although a few do contain hand drawn elements.  On his blog, the artist explains his reaction to the project and reveals the first image.

Working with the lovely guys at 360i in the US, for the past fortnight I’ve been drawing stabbings, garottings, beheadings, lancings, hangings, matricides, fratricides, genocides and suicides. Which is one way of making a living.  It’s amazing to be involved – in some small way – in one of the most relentlessly entertaining TV shows on the box.

16 Jan, 2007

Acquires rights to ‘A Song of Fire & Ice’

0 Comments

HBO announces it has acquired the rights to George R.R. Martin’s series of novels, A Song of Fire & Ice.  The TV series will be written and produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and will be filmed in Europe or New Zealand.  The two will write each episode together save one, which will be scripted by the novel’s author. The series will begin with the first book, A Game of Thrones, with the intention of each novel to inspire a seasons worth of episodes.

They tried for 50 years to make Lord of the Rings as one movie before Peter Jackson found success making three.  My books are bigger and more complicated, and would require 18 movies. Otherwise, you’d have to choose one or two characters.