page_title: HBO
section_title: Launch and expansion as a regional service (1972–1975)
hierarchical_section_title: HBO / History / Launch and expansion as a regional service (1972–1975)
caption_attribution_description: English: For the first four years of the network's existence, HBO identified itself with a still image of its original logo, a ticket stub and the channel's full name "Home Box Office" surrounded by a marquee light design.
context_page_description: Home Box Office is an American pay television network owned by WarnerMedia Studios & Networks and the flagship property of parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. Programming featured on the network consists primarily of theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs as well as made-for-cable movies, documentaries and occasional comedy and concert specials.
  HBO—also the oldest and longest continuously operating subscription television service in the United States—pioneered modern pay television upon its launch on November 8, 1972, as the first television service to be directly transmitted and distributed to individual cable television systems.
  The network operates seven 24-hour, linear multiplex channels as well as a video on demand platform and an eponymous streaming service, and its content is the centerpiece of HBO Max, an expanded streaming platform operated separately from but sharing management with Home Box Office, Inc., which also includes original programming produced exclusively for the service and content from other WarnerMedia properties.
context_section_description: Home Box Office launched at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on November 8, 1972. The service's inaugural program and event telecast, a National Hockey League (NHL) game between the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks from Madison Square Garden (part of a long-term agreement to broadcast sports events based at the Manhattan arena), was transmitted that evening over channel 21—its original assigned channel on the Teleservice system—to its initial base of 365 subscribers in Wilkes-Barre. (A plaque commemorating the launch event is located at Public Square in downtown Wilkes-Barre, established in honor of Service Electric's April 1984 addition of HBO sister channel Cinemax to its lineup. Wilkes-Barre resident Marion Sabestinas, who was the first Teleservice customer to sign up to pay the $6 fee to receive Home Box Office's programming at launch, was honored with a lifetime subscription to Cinemax as part of the plaque ceremony.) The first movie presentation shown on the service aired immediately after the sports event: the 1971 film Sometimes a Great Notion, starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.
  Initially airing nightly on an open-ended schedule dependent on the length of the evening's programs (usually from 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. ET), Home Box Office's programming initially consisted solely of theatrical films—including four or five recent titles per month—and event programming. Each evening's schedule was arranged to present either a double feature (which, under FCC anti-siphoning rules then maintained to protect programming supply for broadcast stations until they were struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 1977, tended to be releases dating no more than two years from their initial theatrical exhibition), or a combination of either a sports or special event and a theatrical movie, often bridged by a short film or other interstitial content.
  As part of their subscription, subscribers received Home Box Office: Your Monthly Entertainment Guide (later retitled HBO On Air in September 1975, and then [The] HBO Guide in February 1977). The digest size program guide—which would also be distributed to guest rooms of HBO's hotel clients starting in 1978—provided programming highlights and complete daily listings for the month; until the May 1980 issue, it also featured "HBO Soundtrack" (originally "Up Front"), an occasional column outlining HBO's upcoming programming and answering common programming questions. The HBO Guide ceased print publication in December 2008; a PDF-formatted online program guide, borrowing from the print version's format, began publishing in January 2002, and was made available for download through the websites of HBO and Cinemax (for which the PDF guide was marketed jointly until it ceased publication after the February 2020 issue), and the Home Box Office Inc. lodging website (until site maintenance ceased in August 2014).
  HBO's launch came with very little fanfare in the press; other than print advertisements promoting the launch in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, the service's debut lacked coverage from local or national media outlets. The city administrator of Wilkes-Barre declined an offer to attend the launch ceremony, while Time Inc. vice president J. Richard Munro became stranded in traffic on the George Washington Bridge en route from Manhattan, and was not able to arrive in Wilkes-Barre for the ceremony. Further complicating preparations for the inaugural telecast, in Midtown Manhattan, strong winds—produced by a storm system that brought areas of freezing rain over portions of the New York City area that evening—toppled the Pan Am Building reception dish being used to relay the Home Box Office signal to microwave towers linked to Teleservice's Wilkes-Barre headend. Time-Life representatives sent a technician to repair the antenna in time for the service's launch, completing maintenance about 25 minutes before the initial telecast.
  By the end of 1972, the service was received by 1,395 subscribers, all from Teleservice customers in Wilkes-Barre; this n
caption: Original HBO logo, used from November 8, 1972 to May 1, 1975.
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