Fifty years after the Thrilla in Manila bout launched HBO as a national broadcasting powerhouse, the network continues to shape modern viewing and entertainment

The Thrilla in Manila, fought 50 years ago on Sept. 30, 1975, in Quezon City, Philippines, was the third bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier and is considered by many as one of the best, most brutal fights in boxing history. It also marked a new era in sports media as the first fight broadcast nationally through Home Box Office (HBO).

Television audiences had been limited in what sports they could watch since the 1930s. Broadcast networks had to fit sports in with their other programming, including news and scripted shows, so audiences that wanted to watch at home were limited to regional offerings or national games of the week. In 1948, a fight between Joe Louis and Joe Walcott was broadcast in theaters through closed-circuit television. Theaters were connected through private telephone or coaxial cable, and viewers bought tickets to see the bout projected from a special receiver.

Closed-circuit broadcasts of boxing matches and other sports events peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, earning millions of dollars for event promoters. Ali’s fights in this era were among the most popular closed-circuit events, but others, like the Indianapolis 500, also drew large audiences of sports fans to movie theaters. The famed Rumble in the Jungle between Ali and George Foreman earned $60 million in theater admission in the United States, with fans paying $20 ($130 today) to watch the event live as it occurred across the world in the former Zaire.

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

The same year as the Louis-Walcott fight, cable television debuted, connecting rural homes too remote to receive a television signal over an antenna. Northeastern Pennsylvania was a test ground for this form of television, since it was close enough to New York City and Philadelphia to pick up broadcast signals with a strong antenna atop a building or a mountain, then connect households through cable. Later, cities in eastern Pennsylvania like Wilkes-Barre and Allentown were among the first whose residents subscribed to paid cable television outside of major cities like New York.

Businessman Charles Dolan was granted a franchise permit to build the first cable system, Sterling Manhattan Cable, in 1965, obtaining financial backing from Time-Life. A lack of quality programming beyond some events in Madison Square Garden hampered the growth of the system, which cost millions of dollars to install but only attracted a few hundred customers in the city. In 1971, during a cruise to France, Dolan conceived of a network that could be leased to other cable systems, which would air unedited films without advertising and was funded by subscriber costs, tentatively named the “Green Channel.”

Along with convincing Time-Life that this was a viable business, Dolan also had to navigate Federal Communications Commission (FCC) scrutiny, which had limited the programs that could be broadcast on cable due to non-duplications rules and other regulations focused on supporting the broadcast networks. Also, consistent lobbying from movie theater chains and broadcasters hampered cable companies, since customers were bombarded with messages that cable was a threat to both the movie business and to free over-the-air content.

Undeterred, Dolan convinced Time-Life to support the Green Channel, which it did after the FCC gave preemptive authorization to launch a paid television service. Dolan and his Time-Life partners originally planned to launch through the Teleservice cable system in Allentown, but after an agreement to broadcast Philadelphia 76ers games collapsed, they launched through the same service 65 miles north in Wilkes Barre to avoid NBA blackouts. Wilkes-Barre was considered New York Knicks territory, and the network had the right to broadcast Knicks games through its agreement with Madison Square Garden. During this time, Dolan and Time-Life also selected a placeholder name for the network, Home Box Office, as they prepared to launch in 1972. The network was soon made available throughout the northeastern United States by relaying microwaves along towers across the region; some of the earliest programming included movies and New York Rangers hockey.

The following year, Home Box Office, Inc., was spun off from Sterling Communications, with Time-Life increasing its equity in the company. Dolan stepped down as CEO of Home Box Office and Sterling after disagreements with Time-Life, accepting a buyout that enabled him to expand his cable service across Long Island. Time-Life had a tentative agreement with Warner Communications to buy HBO, but ultimately that deal fell through. Time-Life later took over Sterling Communications, but the service continued to struggle, ending in 1973 with fewer than 20,000 subscribers and a high turnover rate as customers found the programming repetitive.

 

The Thrilla in Manila bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier marked a new era in sports media as the first fight broadcast nationally through Home Box Office (HBO).

The turning point for HBO came in 1975, when executives made a deal with RCA Americom Communications, a satellite communication company, to relay the HBO signal nationally through UA-Columbia Cablevision. UA-Columbia was a joint venture with United Artists that later took over the entire cable service from Columbia and partnered with Madison Square Garden to form Madison Square Garden Sports Network in 1977, changing its name to USA Network in 1980.

Sports = audience

The partnership between HBO and UA-Columbia, and later the formation of what would become USA Network, showed that even early cable service providers and networks understood live sports would attract audiences. This was confirmed when HBO first transmitted its programming by satellite, debuting the now national network through what is considered by many the greatest boxing match in the sport’s history. Between 1973 and 1980, HBO grew from a regional cable network to a national one, increasing subscribers from 8,000 in the northeast at the start of 1973 to more than 3 million nationally in that seven-year period. HBO’s model was also replicated in local markets through networks like the Z Channel in Los Angeles, which launched in 1974, and Prism in Philadelphia, launched in 1976.

Satellite transmission led to the accelerated growth of cable, with several networks launching in the second half of the 1970s. WTCG became the first superstation in 1976 after Ted Turner learned of the success of the Thrilla in Manila broadcast. He had received approval to buy the Atlanta station six years earlier, and on Dec. 17, 1976, WTCG became the first local station to be retransmitted nationally. The station obtained the rights to broadcast Atlanta Braves baseball games and Atlanta Hawks basketball games—Turner bought the teams in 1976 and 1977, respectively—so when WTCG was renamed WTBS in 1979 and went national, so did the broadcasts for both teams.

The success of WTCG/WTBS led Turner to launch Cable Network News, the first 24-hour news network, in 1980. He launched several other networks through the 1980s and 1990s, including Turner Network Television (TNT) in 1988, Cartoon Network in 1992 and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in 1994, helping him become the first cable magnate and a billionaire before selling Turner Broadcasting System to Time Warner in 1996—placing TBS and Turner’s other holdings under the same umbrella as HBO.

Competition in sports programming

Boxing had been a cornerstone of HBO’s programming since 1973, when the George Foreman upset of Joe Frazier was made famous by Howard Cosell calling “Down Goes Frazier!” HBO also broadcast the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 before going national. Many credit “HBO World Championship Boxing” for the sport’s continued growth in the 1970s through the 1990s, even after Ali retired in 1981. The network also launched “Inside the NFL” in 1977, the first league-branded analysis show on premium cable, which was followed by the Major League Baseball-branded “Race for the Pennant” the following year. HBO aired Wimbledon matches starting in 1975 and set a standard for investigative sports journalism with “Real Sports with Bryant Gumble,” which ran for 28 years starting in 1995.

HBO was a fixture in boxing for 45 years, airing its last boxing match in 2018 as it shifted network focus away from sports overall due to competition from sports media companies, including those also owned by Warner Bros. Discovery like CBS Sports and TNT.

ESPN is another sports media company that emerged from the establishment of regional sports cable networks, including the Madison Square Garden Sports Network. It was originally conceived as a Connecticut sports network before founder Bill Rasmussen learned it would be cheaper to broadcast nationally over satellite from Bristol, Connecticut, than regionally, leading to the first national 24-hour sports network launching in 1979.

The same year, a local Columbus, Ohio, children’s cable network, Pinwheel, went national—renamed Nickelodeon for its April 1 launch. Warner-Amex owned Nickelodeon and launched MTV two years later in 1981, three years after HBO’s music video-focused “Video Jukebox” premiered.

Expanding cable

Cable’s growth was still limited through the early 1980s, with many municipalities blocking expansion to protect their own media. The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 helped create regulations that ensured local stations would be available on cable while also requiring that a portion of cable subscriptions fund public, educational and government (PEG) access channels. As cable’s spread accelerated, HBO continued to break ground in television programming and larger culture.

 

The Sopranos (cast pictured) was one of the industry-changing shows that debuted on HBO duringthe late 1990s and early 2000s. (Photo: HBO)

When HBO launched, there were only a handful of comedy clubs in the United States, with only a few venues to see standup comics outside of New York or Los Angeles. On broadcast television, standup comedy was limited to five-minute sets on late-night and variety shows. HBO’s comedy specials changed the industry when comedian Robert Klein debuted on the network in 1975. HBO helped legendary comedians like George Carlin become stars, while providing viewers exposure to future generations of comedians by creating standup comedy shows like Def Comedy Jam. Other networks and platforms like Comedy Central and Netflix followed this lead and expanded their program offerings through standup programs and specials.

One of the draws of these specials was that they were uncensored. HBO and its sister network Cinemax, which launched in 1980, were unique because they aired uncut theatrical films and adult programming. As HBO spread, advocacy groups tried to block the network in some states, due to what they felt was obscene content. Utah passed several laws to try to block HBO, but ultimately, as a premium network that required a subscription, it was not subject to broadcast obscenity laws and was protected by the First Amendment.

HBO was also a pioneer in unscripted programming, becoming one of the top producers of documentary films and series. From concert films to true crime, the breadth of unscripted programming became an inspiration for reality programming across television and helped advance documentary filmmaking. HBO now releases a documentary film or series nearly every month and helped create a template for documentaries, especially those focused on sports or culture.

As other premium and cable networks encroached on HBO’s programming, the network stayed ahead of the pack and produced its own scripted programming in the early 1980s—including Not Necessarily the News, a satirical news program that inspired series like The Daily Show and HBO’s own Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

One of the true turning points for HBO and the sitcom genre was the debut of The Larry Sanders Show in 1992. The network saw a number of the comedians that launched their careers through HBO—including Jerry Seinfeld and Roseanne Barr—receive their own shows, so HBO worked with Garry Shandling to create the show based on Shandling’s life. The single-camera, behind-the-scenes, laugh track–free show inspired similar series like 30 Rock, The Office and HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.

The true turning point

The true turning point for HBO came in the late 1990s, when the network helped launch what many consider the age of prestige television. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, HBO debuted a string of industry-changing shows including Oz, Sex and the City, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under, and The Wire, which inspired other networks to focus on higher-quality scripted programming like The Shield on FX and Mad Men on AMC.

During this time, HBO also launched the first video-on-demand service in 2001 through cable providers, initiating a shift away from appointment television and toward the current streaming environment, which HBO helped expand by launching HBO Go in 2010. Although Netflix launched its streaming service in 2007, HBO Go offered the network’s original programming and pushed Netflix to do the same; Netflix aired its first original series, House of Cards, in 2013.

HBO Go was supported by a new wave of highly produced series that brought cinematic-level production to television. Shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld helped support the continued growth of cinematic sensibilities influencing television production. Even with increased competition from streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu, HBO continues to be an industry leader despite questions regarding parent company Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) future. HBO Max is the streaming home for the corporation offering HBO programming along with news (CNN), sports (Turner/CBS) and scripted and unscripted programming from across WBD’s many brands.

HBO’s growth from a small regional subscription network to the standard bearer of television internationally can be traced to the network’s national debut. That its first national broadcast happened to be one of the greatest boxing matches in the sport’s history is fitting, considering HBO’s impact on modern television.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies.

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