HBO Offers Shows Online, Free to Subscribers

(NEWSER) - US viewers see ESPN and the Discovery Channel as the most indispensable cable networks, Multichannel News reports. A poll by Solutions Research Group asked 1,200 TV viewers which channels they thought of as “must keep.” The results:

• The top four spots went to the big networks. In order: ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.
• The rest of the top 10: ESPN, Discovery, History, Sci Fi Channel, HBO, and the Food Network.

We don't care about platforms, Michael Wolff argues, we care about shows

(NEWSER) - Sunday should have been a banner night for HBO, with Game of Thrones and the premiere of its latest "zeitgeist-courting" show Girls. But Michael Wolff didn't tune in—though not for lack of trying. Wolff and his companion "don't have HBO. And, it turns out, after some hurried calling around, nobody we know has HBO. They all did; now, they don't," he writes in the Guardian . Pretty much everyone he called deemed HBO either too expensive, too "uncool," or both. "If I were HBO, I'd find this alarming." More»

New HBO show sparks reviewer battle at 'Mother Jones'

(NEWSER) - Two reviewers at Mother Jones have locked horns over HBO's new hipster all-female series, Girls. "Hipsters are really going to like this show," sneered Asawin Suebsaeng a few days ago. "Which is to say that it is as profoundly bland as it is unstoppably irritating." So Maya Dusenbery stood up to defend Girls , praising its "aggressively unglamorous hook-ups," honest portrayal of abortion, and "the easy intimacy of these friends": More»

Producers pull plug because they can't guarantee animal safety

(NEWSER) - The death of a third horse turned out to be unlucky for HBO's racing series Luck. Producers have decided to cancel the show. Officials said "with heartbreak" that they're ceasing "all future production," reports the BBC . While we "maintained the highest safety standards possible, accidents unfortunately happen, and it is impossible to guarantee they won't in the future," said an HBO statement. "Accordingly, we have reached this difficult decision." Two horses were put down after suffering injuries in racing scenes during filming of the show's first season last year. A third was killed this week when the animal reared up and fell, striking its head, as it was being led back to its stall. The series examined the seedier side of racing, and featured Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte. More»

An average of 2.1M viewers watched premiere

(NEWSER) - Love it or hate it , you can't argue that Game Change was a good move for HBO: The movie debuted Saturday to an average of 2.1 million viewers, the largest audience for an original-film premiere on the channel in nearly eight years. A total of 3.6 million viewers watched its four showings over the weekend, BusinessWeek reports. The film, which charted Sarah Palin's rise, was based on portions of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's book of the same name. More»