HBO Asia is a franchise of HBO in Asia. HBO Asia is now a joint venture of media giants Viacom (25%) and Time Warner (75%). Sony Pictures Entertainment and Universal Studios have exited the 15-year-old HBO Asia premium movie joint venture from January 16, 2008.

[edit] History

Launched in 1992, Singapore-based HBO Asia is a 24-hour subscription movie channel that offers viewers in Asia movies with more than 120 commercial-free titles every month. HBO Asia also offers original movies and series that are produced by HBO, exclusively for its viewers. HBO is recognized as the best in the business at producing original programs for television, winning the top Emmy and Golden Globe Awards.

HBO Asia has five channels under its multi-channel strategy (HBO, HBO Signature, HBO HiTS, HBO Family and Cinemax). HBO also launched its first Subscription Video-On-Demand service, HBO On Demand, in Hong Kong and was launched in Singapore a year later.

HBO recently launched its first regional HD channel, HBO HD, in Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines and Malaysia. HBO is available in 22 countries throughout Asia and has closed-captioned subtitling in several local languages.

[edit] Slogan

Simply The Best: 1992 to 2008
It's Not TV, It's HBO : 2009 - present

[edit] Programming

HBO Asia has licensing deals with 4 major Hollywood conglomerates along with their film studios: Time Warner (Warner Bros. Pictures; New Line Cinema, HBO Films, Castle Rock Entertainment; Warner Independent Pictures, Franchise Pictures), Viacom (Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures; Paramount Vantage), Sony (Columbia Pictures; Sony Pictures Classics; Screen Gems, TriStar Pictures) and NBC Universal (Universal Studios; Focus Features) . It also licenses movies from many independent distributors such as Village Roadshow Pictures, Morgan Creek,...

Prime-time movies are anchored at 9pm (Singapore Time) every day.
Lunch-time movies are anchored at 1pm everyday.
Movies are mostly premiered on Sunday nights at 9pm. After premiered, it will be aired many times in next whole 7 days (Monday at 3am and 1pm, Tuesday at 12am, 7am and 5pm, Thursday at 7pm, Friday at 5am, Saturday at 11am and 11pm, Sunday at 3pm).
HBO Central is the viewers' monthly guide brings exciting look at what’s new on the channel each month on HBO, including Hollywood gossip, behind-the-scenes tidbits, superstar profiles and films' fun facts
New seasons of HBO's award-winning Original Series or Original Productions aired on Monday nights at 11pm.
TMZ, aired from Tuesday to Saturday, same day telecast as its US channel.
Hollywood One On One

[edit] Channels

Network	Description	Website
HBO HiTS Asia	Shows hits and blockbuster films	Official Site
HBO Family Asia	Shows family oriented films	Official Site
HBO Signature Asia	Shows critically acclaimed productions	Official Site
HBO	Shows Hollywood films and HBO Original series	Official Site
HBO HD Asia	Shows Hollywood movies and HBO Originals in superb clear pictures
HBO On Demand Asia	Shows the best Hollywood films and outstanding HBO Originals at your control	Official Site
MAX Asia	Shows action and suspense 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 THE HBO PAK. In Indonesia, First Media's package is HBO MAX PAK In Singapore, StarHub TV's package is called HBO PAK.

[edit] Censorship

Screenshot from HBO Asia showing Stomp The Yard. Note the HBO logo on the top right corner, it was originally on the left top corner until 2008. The Chinese subtitles which was shown in Singapore

Singapore:

Since HBO Asia headquarters is in Singapore, HBO Asia has to follow Singapore Law, which includes cuts, etc... One of the programs that experienced this kind of treatment is "Sex and the City".

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 series continued to air without discrution on all other Philippines cable operators.

Vietnam:

Every movie with contents which opposes or distorts the Vietnam War, Vietnam Communist Party and the Communism is replaced by a black screen. In addition, if the Ministry of Culture and Information considers a movie is of a serious sexual or horrific nature not conforming with Vietnamese society, it will not be aired.

[edit] HBO in South Asia

[edit] India

HBO Asia airs a separate Ad break filled PAY TV feed for viewers in South Asia. The channel is labeled as HBO South Asia and often referred to as HBO India since it specifically caters to the Indian market. All movie promos in this beam are according to IST The channel is also available to viewers in Bangladesh, Maldives. In this area, the movie licenses from DreamWorks runs to Star Movies until July 2008. Now HBO South Asia assumes the rights to DreamWorks'.

[edit] Pakistan

In Pakistan, HBO is available as HBO Pakistan. It is a simulcast of HBO India with slight modifications and running in PST. Diwali ads and other adverts targeted towards India are filtered out in this beam. Only Pakistani adverts are present in this beam. This beam can also be called the +0.30 version of HBO South Asia since all the programs aired on this beam are aired with a 30min delay.

[edit] Availability

Malaysia
- Astro
Philippines
Hong Kong
- now TV
Indonesia
Singapore
- StarHub TV
China
- CITV China
Macau
- Macau Cable TV
Thailand
- TrueVisions
Taiwan
- CNS Total TV
Vietnam
- VTC's Cable television and Electronics Company (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City)
- Tay Do CaTV (Can Tho City and Ca Mau City)
- Ho Chi Minh Cable Television - HTVC (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
- Tata Sky
- DishTV
- Airtel digital TV
- Reliance BIG TV
Sri Lanka
- DialogTV
- Lanka Broadband Networks
- Comet Cable

[edit] See also

HBO Asia
Launched	1 January 1992
Owned by	Home Box Office; (Time Warner)
Picture format	480i (SDTV ); 1080i (HDTV)
Slogan	It's Not TV. It's HBO.
Country	Singapore
Broadcast area	Asia
Headquarters	151 Lorong Chuan, New Tech Park 04-05, Singapore
Sister channel(s)	MAX Asia, HBO HiTS, HBO Signature Asia, HBO Family Asia, HBO On Demand Asia and HBO HD Asia
Website	HBOAsia.com
Availability
Satellite
Tata Sky (India)	Channel 347
Astro (Malaysia)	Channel 411 (HBO Asia), Channel 431 (HBO HD Asia)
Indovision (Indonesia)	Channel 6 (HBO Signature), Channel 7 (HBO Asia), Channel 9 (HBO Family), Channel 10 (HBO HiTS), TBA (HBO On Demand)
TelkomVision (Indonesia)	Channel ???
TrueVisions (Thailand)	Channel 13 (HBO Asia), Channel 69 (HBO Signature), Channel 70 (HBO Family),Channel 71 (HBO HiTS), TBA (HBO On Demand)
DialogTV (Sri Lanka)	Channel 4
Dream Satellite TV (Philippines)	TBA (HBO Asia), TBA (HBO Signature), TBA (HBO Family), TBA (HBO HiTS), TBA (HBO On Demand)
Cignal Digital TV (Philippines)	Channel 36 (HBO Asia), Channel 50 (HBO HD Asia), TBA (HBO Signature), TBA (HBO Family),TBA (HBO HiTS), TBA (HBO On Demand)
HBO Ary digital (Pakistan)	Channel 10
Cable
SkyCable (Philippines)	Channel 54 / Channel 62 (HBO Asia) for some that has Addressable Boxes, Channel 100 (HBO HiTS), Channel 101 (HBO Signature), Channel 102 (HBO Family), Channel 166 (HBO HD Asia), TBA (HBO On Demand)
Global Destiny (Philippines)	Channel 37 (HBO Asia), TBA (HBO HiTS), TBA (HBO Signature), TBA (HBO Family), TBA (HBO On Demand)
StarHub TV (Singapore)	Channel 60 (HBO Asia), Channel 66 (HBO Signature), Channel 67 (HBO HiTS), Channel 68 (HBO Family), Channel 602 (HBO HD Asia), (HBO On Demand)
First Media (Indonesia)	Channel 285 (HBO Asia), Channel 286 (HBO Signature), Channel 287 (HBO HiTS), Channel 288 (HBO Family), TBA (HBO On Demand
TrueVisions (Thailand)	Channel 13 (HBO Asia), Channel 69 (HBO Signature), Channel 71 (HBO HiTS), Channel 70 (HBO Family), TBA (HBO On Demand
United Communication Service (Bangladesh)	Channel 31 (HBO Asia), Channel 54 (HBO India)
HCaTV (Vietnam)	Channel 20
Tay Do CaTV (Vietnam)	Channel 03
Parasat Cable TV (Philippines)	Channel 43
IPTV
now TV (Hong Kong)	Channel 110 (HBO HD Asia), Channel 111 (HBO HiTS), Channel 112 (HBO Family), Channel 113 (HBO Signature PLUS 1), Channel 114 (HBO Signature), Channel 115 (HBO Asia),TBA (HBO On Demand)

[edit] External links

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