Is HBO GO “True Detective” Outage From Password Sharing?

By Jon C. Ogg Published Mar 10, 11:50AM EDT

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There has been a bit of an uproar over an HBO GO outage during the season finale for the “True Detective” series. Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) operates the Home Box Office unit, which therefore owns HBO GO. As the HBO GO simulcasting service is for those HBO subscribers with set-top boxes or other subscription-based cable services, it is at least fair to ask if the outage was perhaps due to password sharing.

If you think that this password sharing issue is unique, it is far from unique. Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) took all sorts of heat over a pricing change previously, but at least some of that pricing issue certainly seemed to be a means of combating the issue around password sharing. Netflix has likely fended off much of that, but the reality is that any password-protected subscriber service will experience at least some password sharing. It is simply a part of the game.

In fact, try doing a Google search on “Netflix password sharing.” Not only are there specific instances mentioned where the company has addressed this, there are a whopping 15,200,000 results on this matter.

The @HBOGO Twitter feed said at the time of the outage, “Due to overwhelmingly popular demand for #TrueDetective, we’ve been made aware of an issue affecting some users. Please try again soon.”

It later said, “The issues affecting HBO GO last night have been resolved. Thank you for being patient.”

What is interesting is that the #TrueDetective handle on Twitter was being referenced 10 to 20 times per second on Twitter, even as of 11:20 a.m. on Monday morning — a day after the season finale.

HBO GO can be streamed on iPad, iPhone, AppleTV, Android phones and tablets, Google Chromecast, Kindle Fire, Sony PlayStation, Roku, Samsung SmartTV and Xbox.

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) was down 0.4% at $68.00 in mid-day trading on Monday. Frankly, this is one of those things that subscribers may complain about, but how many subscribers will really cancel their service because they could not stream the season finale?

To put this outage in perspective in the grand scheme of things, this is probably not the same sort of serious problems that the Sudanese or Ukrainians are concerned about at this time.

About the Author Jon C. Ogg →

Jon Ogg has been a financial news analyst since 1997. Mr. Ogg set up one of the first audio squawk box services for traders called TTN, which he sold in 2003. He has previously worked as a licensed broker to some of the top U.S. and E.U. financial institutions, managed capital, and has raised private capital at the seed and venture stage. He has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as New York and Chicago, and he now lives in Houston, Texas. Jon received a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance at University of Houston in 1992. a673b.bigscoots-temp.com.