HBO (Asia)

HBO
Launched	May 1, 1992
Network	HBO
Owned by	HBO (75%) Paramount Pictures (25%)
Picture format	1080i (HDTV) 480i (SDTV)
Language	English
Broadcast area	Philippines, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam
Headquarters	151 Lorong Chuan, New Technology Park 04-05, Serangoon Gardens, Singapore
Sister channel(s)	HBO Signature, HBO Family, HBO Hits, HBO On Demand, Cinemax, Screen Red
Website	hboasia.com

HBO is a 24-hour American English movie channel, a franchise of HBO in Asia.

History

Sony Pictures Entertainment and Universal Studios exited the fifteen year-old joint venture on 1 January 2008. HBO is now a joint venture of media giants Time Warner (75%) and Viacom (25%).

Slogans

• 1992–2009: Simply The Best
• 2009–present: It's Not TV, It's HBO.

Channels

• HBO
• HBO HD
• HBO Signature
• HBO Signature HD
• HBO Family
• HBO Family HD
• HBO Hits
• HBO Hits HD
• HBO On Demand
• Cinemax
• Screen Red

Programming

HBO Asia has licensing deals with two major Hollywood conglomerates (and their film studios): Time Warner (notably Warner Bros. Pictures) and Viacom (notably Paramount Pictures). It also licenses movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment (notably Columbia Pictures and Screen Gems), Universal Studios and independent distributors such as Morgan Creek.

A new movie is usually premiered on Sunday night at 10pm. After the premiere, it will be aired many times in the next seven days. HBO Central is a monthly program giving information about which movies and series will be shown in the coming month, including Hollywood gossip and behind-the-scenes tidbits.

New seasons of HBO's Original Series or Original Productions air on Monday nights at 10pm.

Censorship

• Singapore: Since HBO Asia headquarters is in Singapore, HBO Asia has to follow Singapore Law, which means that cuts have to be made to programs such as Sex and the City and The Sopranos, which were Rated 16 or 18.

• Philippines: The HBO-made series Entourage was taken off-air for three weeks by one cable operator in the Philippines pending clearance by MTRCB. The entire series continued to air without disruption on all other Philippines cable operators.

• Vietnam: Every movie with content which is considered to oppose or distort the Vietnam War, the Vietnam Communist Party or Communism is replaced by a black screen. In addition, if the Ministry of Culture and Information considers a movie has contents of a serious sexual or horrific nature not conforming with Vietnamese society, it will not be aired.

HBO in the Indian subcontinent

India

HBO airs a separate feed with commercial breaks for viewers in the Indian subcontinent. The channel is labeled as HBO South Asia and often referred to as HBO India since it specifically caters to the Indian market. All movie promos in this beam are according to IST The channel is also available to viewers in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. HBO South Asia took over the rights for DreamWorks Productions movies from STAR Movies in June 2008.

HBO and Eros International launched HBO Defined and HBO Hits across India on February 21, 2013 on Dish TV and Airtel Digital TV. These channels are commercial-free and available in both SD and HD formats. Both channels now also air movies which are not shown on other English movie channels in India.

Pakistan

In Pakistan, HBO is available as HBO Pakistan. It is a simulcast of HBO India with slight modifications and running in PST. India-specific ads and other adverts targeted towards India are filtered out in this beam, and are replaced with promos and ads targeting Pakistan. Commercially, HBO Pakistan generates less than 7% of the revenue that HBO India does due to the small size of the Pakistan advertising market.

See also

• HBO
• Cinemax

External links

• Homepage
• HBO South Asia homepage