HBO Asia
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| HBO Asia | |
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| Availability | Philippines, India, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Mongolia, Malaysia, Indonesia,Hong Kong, Macau, Palau, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan. |
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| Owner | HBO Asia, Home Box Office, .Inc |
| Website | http://www.hboasia.com/ |
| HBO | |
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| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| Astro Indonesia | Channel 66 |
| True Visions Thailand | Channel 13 Digital (12 Analogue) |
| Cable | |
| StarHub Cable Vision (Singapore) | Channel 60 |
HBO Asia is a franchise of HBO in Asia. HBO Asia is a joint venture of media giants Viacom, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner and Universal Studios. HBO has 5 channels and is headquartered in Singapore.
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[edit] History
Launched in 1992, HBO is a 24-hour commercial-free subscription movie channel offering viewers in Asia a choice of more than 120 programs every month. HBO also offers quality original movies and series that are produced by HBO, exclusively for viewers of the HBO channel. HBO is recognized as the best in the business at producing original programs for television, winning many Emmy® and Golden Globe® Awards year after year.
HBO's prime-time viewing includes HBO Blockbuster of the Month, an exclusive premiere of the biggest and newest Hollywood blockbusters on a special Sunday once a month; HBO Saturday Nights, which introduces a brand-new box office hit every Saturday; New on the Big Screen, a monthly rundown of specially recommended movies you need to watch at the theaters; Friday Big Hits, which showcases a guaranteed blockbuster every Friday night; HBO Wednesday Superstar, which brings you a dazzling movie featuring the hottest Hollywood movie stars who are lighting up the big screens today; HBO Central, which is your monthly guide to the hottest attractions on HBO. New seasons of award-winning and groundbreaking HBO Original Series and HBO Original Movies that are made by HBO exclusively for HBO will continue to provoke and entertain, on every first Tuesday night of the month.
[edit] Slogan
- Simply The Best - 1992 to present
[edit] South Asia
HBO Asia airs a separate commercial supported feed for viewers in South Asia. The channel is labeled as HBO South Asia and often called HBO India since it specifically caters to the Indian market. The channel is also available to viewers in Bangladesh, Maldives and Pakistan. In this area, the movie licenses from DreamWorks runs to Star Movies.
[edit] Censorship
[edit] Malaysia
Due to the fact that Malaysians are conservative people, HBO Asia has established HBO Asia feed exclusively for Malaysia.
[edit] Philippines
The HBO-made series "Entourage" was taken off-air for 3 weeks by one cable operator in the Philippines pending clearance by MTRCB. The entire seires continued to air without discrution on all other Philippines cable operators.
[edit] Vietnam
Every movie has the contents of opposing and distorting about Vietnam War, Vietnam Communist Party and the Communism will be replaced by a senseless black screen. In addition, if the Ministry of Culture and Information considers a movie is the serious sexual and terrified one, not conformity with Vietnamese society, it will not be aired, too.
[edit] Singapore
Since HBO Asia Headquarters is in Singapore, HBO Asia has to follow the Singapore's Law. Which includes Cuts, Censors, etc... One of the programs that experience this kind of treatment is "Sex in the City".
[edit] HBO Multiplex Channels
| Network | Description | Website |
|---|---|---|
| HBO HiTS | Shows the biggest Blockbusters and Hits. | Official Site |
| HBO Family | Shows family oriented films. | Official Site |
| HBO Signature | Shows critically acclaimed productions. | Official Site |
| HBO | Shows Hollywood films and HBO Original series | Official Site |
| Cinemax Asia | Shows action, horror, suspense and thriller movies. | Official Site |
The HBO multiplex channels are divided into special packages. In Hong Kong, now TV's package is HBO/MAX PAK Premium while in the Philippines, SkyCable Platinum's package is HBO PAK
[edit] Studios
HBO brings the top blockbuster movies to Asia first through exclusive licensing deals with the major Hollywood studios - Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. Contributing to its programming mix, HBO also licenses movies from major independent distributors such as Castle Rock, Focus Features, Franchise, Morgan Creek, New Line Cinema, Paramount Classics, Picturehouse, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, Village Roadshow and Warner Independent Pictures.
Also note that some of the movies from Universal Studios, Columbia/TriStar Pictures and ParaMount Pictures after being shown many times on HBO and its sister channels will be premiered on Star Movies and AXN.
[edit] Criticism
- Air old movies:
Viewers accustomed to the programs available in the US will find that the bulk of movies shown on HBO Asia are fairly old movies. They usually spend more percent to air old movies from 1994-1998, or even from the 1980s. In USA, HBO is number one movie channel, but in Asia, HBO wasn't a number one movie channel in all Asian countries and territories. HBO is the biggest movie network in Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan. However, in India and South Asia, Malaysia, this title belongs to Star Movies.
- Flash screen:
HBO adds flash screen to advertise for it after showing movies in prime time at night. This makes viewers hardly catch the casts' names.
- Family channels effects:
Since HBO adds two new channels: HBO Hits and HBO Family. Plus with Cinemax and HBO Signature, the new movies which only have on HBO in that month have been reduced. New movies air on HBO every month, not only most old but also most taken from its family channels. Viewers who have enough five channels will see that movies are repeated from this channel to other channel in its family.
[edit] HBO Blockbuster of the Month
HBO Blockbuster of the Month is an exclusive premiere of the biggest and newest Hollywood blockbusters on a special Sunday once a month. Before 2006, this program was called The Big One.
2006
- January: Spider-Man 2 (Columbia Pictures)
- February: Shrek 2 (DreamWorks Animation)
- March: Bridget Jones 2: The Edge Of Reason (Universal Pictures / Studio Canal+)
- April: Constantine (Warner Bros.)
- May: Shark Tale (DreamWorks Animation)
- June: The Terminal (DreamWorks Pictures)
- July: Hitch (Columbia Pictures)
- August: Batman Begins (Warner Bros.)
- September: Collateral (Paramount Pictures / DreamWorks Pictures)
- October: Meet the Fockers (Universal Pictures)
- November: Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (Warner Bros.)
- December: The Polar Express (Warner Bros.), Madagascar (DreamWorks Animation) - New Year's Event
2007
- January: War Of The Worlds (2005) (Paramount Pictures / DreamWorks Pictures)
- February: Wedding Crashers (New Line Cinema)
- March: Just Like Heaven (DreamWorks Pictures)
- April: King Kong (2005) (Universal Pictures)
- May: Underworld: Evolution (Sony Pictures / Screen Gems)
[edit] Availability
- Malaysia
- Philippines
- SkyCable
- Global Destiny Cable
- Cablelink
- Cable Boss
- Dream Satellite TV
- Hong Kong
- Indonesia
- Astro Nusantara
- Kabelvision
- IndoVision Digital
- Sri Lanka
- Singapore
- China
- CITV China
- Macau
- Macau Cable TV
- Thailand
- Taiwan
- Vietnam
- Tay Do CaTV (Can Tho City and Ca Mau City)
- Ho Chi Minh Cable Television - HCTV (Ho Chi Minh City)
- Ha Noi Cable Television - HCaTV (Ha Noi)
- Vietnam Cable Television - VCTV (Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Ha Tay, Hai Duong)
- Song Thu Cable Company (Da Nang City)
- Bangladesh
- Maldives
- Pakistan
- India
