HBO Goes SVOD in Cincinnati
By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 10/3/2001 1:49:00 PM
Nearly four months after suffering complications with Home Box Office's subscription-video-on-demand service in its Columbia, S.C., system, Time Warner Cable launched the service in its Greater Cincinnati system Tuesday.
The Oct. 2 launch of HBO SVOD to about 330,000 Cincinnati-area subscribers -- the system would not reveal digital-household numbers -- will differ slightly from Time Warner's April launch of HBO SVOD in Columbia.
There, the system's ordering infrastructure crashed under the weight of thousands of requests for access to the pay network's SVOD service
Unlike Columbia, Time Warner Cincinnati will not offer a free one-month trial for the service, officials said. Instead, it will charge subscribers $9.95 per month for VOD access to episodes of HBO signature series The Sopranos and Sex and the City, as well to original and theatrical releases. The price is a marked increase from the $3.95 charged in Columbia.
Time Warner vice president of communications Mike Luftman said the Cincinnati system does not expect to suffer similar technological breakdowns.
'Unlike Columbia, the service is not initially free, which is part of the reason why we experienced that pop of orders early on,' he said. 'That's why we do tests -- to determine the best way to offer the service.'
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