HBO Asia

HBO Asia was heavily censored in Asia, with many shows such as Sex and the City, The Sopranos, Entourage, The Wire, Hung, Girls, True Blood, Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire aired in edited versions; certain programmes are not shown in some territories at all. This has been liberalised to an extent in recent years.[1][2][3]

The HBO-made series Entourage was taken off-air for three weeks by one cable operator in the Philippines pending clearance by the MTRCB. The entire series continued to air without disruption on all other Philippines cable operators.

In Vietnam, every movie with content which is considered to oppose or distort the Vietnam War, the Communist Party of Vietnam or communism is replaced by another film. In addition, if the Ministry of Culture and Information considers a movie has contents of a serious sexual or horrific nature not conforming with Vietnamese society, it will not be aired.

Movies that have the middle fingers show up are cut.

HBO airs a separate feed with commercial breaks for viewers in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives. The channel is labelled as HBO South Asia. All movie promos in this beam are according to IST.

Before the launch of HBO South Asia, HBO tried replicating the premium model in India. But then HBO decided it wasn't commercially viable so the South Asia channel was launched in India and also in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Maldives.[4] Bangladesh did get HBO Asia before the launch of the South Asia channel, but then the feed was changed.[5]

HBO Asia and Eros International launched HBO Defined and HBO Hits across India on 21 February 2013 on Dish TV and Airtel Digital TV. These channels are commercial-free. The content of both the channels include movies as well as most of HBO Original Programming. When the channels launched, the main HBO channel stopped airing original series.[6]

In 2015, HBO had decided to exit the Indian market and license the channel to Turner International India.[7] The channel was rebranded with its own packaging in February 2016.[8] HBO Defined and HBO Hits would be handled by Star India, however HBO Defined and HBO Hits SD was shut down on 31 December 2015 while HBO Hits HD was replaced by HBO HD on 4 September 2016.[9] It only airs Hollywood movies, as Star India has the rights to HBO Original Programming which are available on Star World and Hotstar.[10]