Happy Throwback Thursday! Today, our throwback year is 1972, the year HBO launched!
When HBO flipped the switch in 1972, no one could have guessed just how much it would change television. Launched on November 8 of that year, HBO became the first subscription-based TV service in the United States—and today, it’s the oldest one still in operation. Even more importantly, it was the blueprint for what we now call the “premium channel.”
Unlike traditional networks, HBO wasn’t dependent on commercials or advertisers. Instead, subscribers paid a monthly fee for uncut, ad-free programming—an unheard-of concept at the time. For $6 a month, households in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, could sign up with Teleservice Cable and watch something completely new.
The very first HBO broadcast aired at 7:30 p.m. on November 8, 1972: a hockey game between the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks, followed by the Paul Newman and Henry Fonda film Sometimes a Great Notion. By the end of the year, HBO had just 1,395 subscribers, all from that one Pennsylvania cable system. But things were about to get bigger.
Only a few months later, HBO tested out original entertainment with its first special—the Pennsylvania Polka Festival, a three-hour live event from the Allentown Fairgrounds. And in 1975, the network made history by becoming the first television channel in the world to transmit via satellite, allowing it to expand nationwide.
For its first decade, HBO only aired programming for about nine hours a day. That changed in 1981, when rival Showtime went 24/7 and HBO followed suit. But the real game-changer came when HBO started leaning into original programming. Because it wasn’t beholden to advertisers, HBO gave creators more freedom to tell their stories without censorship. That willingness to take risks led to the gritty, groundbreaking content that put the network on the map.
The 1990s marked HBO’s golden era. This was the decade of Oz, Sex and the City, The Wire, Six Feet Under, and—most famously—The Sopranos. David Chase’s mob drama didn’t just redefine television; it made history. Before The Sopranos, no cable drama had ever been nominated for the Emmy for Best Drama Series. That changed in 1999, when its first season earned 16 nominations. Over its entire run, the show amassed 112 nominations and 21 wins, proving once and for all that cable TV could compete with the networks.
The momentum carried into the 2010s with Game of Thrones, one of the most talked-about shows of all time. Millions of people around the world tuned in every week, turning Sunday nights into a cultural event. At the same time, the streaming revolution forced HBO to adapt. First came HBO Go for cable subscribers, then standalone streaming with HBO Now, and eventually HBO Max in 2020, which bundled HBO originals with WarnerMedia’s vast library of shows and films.
By 2018, HBO had about 35 million subscribers in the U.S. alone. Today, HBO Max ranks among the world’s top streaming platforms, with more than 125 million paid memberships globally.