PandoDaily:

When HBO does come around to breaking free of cable, how late will it be? Clearly the ideal time to make this move is right this minute. Or, actually, it was two weeks ago, just before the Game of Thrones finale. In addition to the immense popularity of that nerd-bait show, HBO currently benefits from a struggling Netflix and Hulu, and a TV industry that hasn’t yet been completely remade by Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. If it had booked a few million non-cable subscribers now, and then slowly expanded on that effort over the next few years, the company could well have set itself up as a leading player in the new, many-device, multi-payment model TV world.But instead HBO is dithering, playing chicken with an unyielding future. How disastrous will this course prove? When HBO finally, inevitably decides to offer non-cable subscription plans, will it be just fashionably late, at a point where it can salvage its future? Or will it be so perilously tardy that it can’t catch up? At the moment, when it comes to streaming, the men who lead HBO seem bent on sticking with this second strategy—better never than late, as they see it.