Share:
Game of Thrones will be available without a cable subscription in the US next year
HBO will launch its keenly-awaited standalone streaming service in the United States in April 2015, according to reports on Tuesday.
The Fortune website reckons the service will be rolled out on April 6 to coincide with the season five premiere of Game of Thrones.
The service will allow those viewers in the US to watch HBO for the first time without a wider cable subscription and promises to shake up the television landscape across the pond.
According to the Forbes write-up HBO’s new service won’t simply be a non-exclusive version of the current HBO Go service either.
The company has reportedly cancelled it’s plans to build a homegrown portal and has acquired the services of MLB Advanced to create a brand new platform.
That group has previous when it comes to building successful on-demand platforms, after launching MLB.com, building the infrastructure for the WWE Network and WatchESPN.
Forbes’ sources claim the company’s executives decided to knock the in-house solution on the head following several HBO Go outages during episodes of Game of Thrones and True Detective.
One insider said the work was outsourced to external sources because HBO realised the current CTO “couldn’t pull it off.”
The report leaves the future of the current HBO Go service in question too. Perhaps all subscribers now and old will be getting a new version by the time we return to Westeros in April?
Read more: Has the Game of Thrones game done the show justice?