Home Box Office (HBO) is using Netscape software and an intranet to access vital data for making television programming decisions and to provide its sales force with tools to help sell their premium television services.

Netscape software allows employees to flexibly navigate through corporate data -- enhancing creativity in television programming decisions and providing intuitive graphical views of statistical data.

New marketing campaigns are rolled out to the sales force via the intranet. The new system:

• eliminates costs for printing, videocassette duplication, and distribution
• reduces the time needed to find information
• gives the sales force immediate knowledge of new marketing campaigns

HBO runs Netscape Communications Server software on an SGI CHALLENGE parallel processor system. The company has a 500-user site license for Netscape Navigator and plans to expand the site license company-wide.

HBO hopes to be able to use Netscape Navigator as the one interface to much of its corporate data.

Home Box Office (HBO) is in the business of licensing and producing movies and other programming that provide a valuable entertainment service to its premium television subscribers.

Netscape software and an intranet are helping HBO give its employees access to vital data for making television programming decisions and provide its sales force with rapid access to tools to help sell their programs.

HBO runs Netscape Communications Server software on an SGI CHALLENGE parallel processor system. The company has a 500-user site license for Netscape Navigator and plans to expand the site license company-wide.

EASY ACCESS TO CORPORATE MOVIE DATABASE

HBO employees use Netscape Navigator to access crucial information in the company's corporate database. "Our database contains information on every movie ever made or in the process of being made," explains Bruce Probst, HBO's Director of Applications and Technical Development. "This includes any movie played on our channel and other channels, with two to three years of play histories for all of the networks."

HBO's Oracle database tracks a movie's cast, director, distributor, how much money it made, HBO's rights to sell that product, whether it's on videocassette, and when it's scheduled to play for the next two years.

This database is tied to a Nielsen database that tracks ratings of shows on HBO and the other networks. "We want to be able to track the life cycle of a show, from the time it is released in the theater until it plays on TV. We can look at a movie and see every time it played and how it did," Probst explains.

This information is invaluable to countless employees within HBO, including researchers, programmers, and high-level executives. But before the Web network, there was no easy way to get at the information. The data could only be accessed in the form of inflexible paper reports.

"Programming television is a creative activity. It depends on many factors like the political climate, trends, or the holidays. We need a tool that is fluid enough to respond to intuition or a set of associations that lead you down a path," he explains. "For example, I can type 'Die Hard' into a Netscape window and it will return a page with the entire cast and links to all the movies they've ever made. I can use Netscape to easily traverse through the entire database. It begins to reflect the way we think about information."

For more quantitative analysis, HBO employees can use Navigator to make SQL queries to the Oracle database and dynamically build a graphical representation of the requested statistics. "We look at a lot of statistical information and need a way to convey trends. The mind processes graphical information much faster than text. We can create a graph of our ratings for that day against the ratings performance of other networks and instantly see how we did," he explains.

IMMEDIATE ELECTRONIC DISTRIBUTION TO SALES FORCE

Once the programming is determined, the next step is to go out and sell the programs to cable operators around the country. Every month, HBO's marketing department rolls out the latest marketing campaign to its 200-300 sales representatives nationwide. Headquarters used to send out large boxes of marketing materials for each campaign, including video promos on VHS cassettes, postcards, ad slicks, billboards, artwork, and marketing reports.

Now all of that information is on HBO's intranet where all of its regional sales offices can access it using Netscape Navigator. "All art work, ad text, post cards, ad slicks, and QuickTime clips of video promos can be viewed and downloaded in real time. Our sales reps can take this directly to their clients without having to generate paper," says Probst. "With all of this data online, our costs for printing, duplication of videocassettes, and distribution are eliminated."

But cost savings are only part of the benefits. "You can measure the cost savings of not having to duplicate tapes every month. But that's not as important as having all the information centralized in one place. People can search for what they need and get results immediately," says Probst. "This used to take a long time to get at. It's now at people's fingertips. We've increased productivity and people have more control and flexibility."

"Another benefit is it's instantaneous. Before, once we signed off on the look of an advertising postcard, it had to be sent to the printer -- produced, collated, and then mailed out. Now once the campaign materials are approved, they are immediately online," he explains. "Timing is everything. Our sales people know the direction of a campaign earlier so they can get to their customers sooner, and make plans to market it locally."

Netscape software also plays a more universal role within the company. "We are trying to find a common interface to disparate types of information in our corporation. This is the information that is necessary to function in the company and manage day-to-day responsibilities. We want to move toward a common interface for all information," Probst explains. This is important for HBO's mixed environment of Macintosh and PC users.

Netscape Navigator allows HBO employees to access practically all corporate information, including network programming, HR policy manuals, the employee database, organization charts, the cafeteria menu, conference room availability, and the in-house newspaper. "We don't have to worry about losing memos or reports, or what program to use to access specific data. With all information in a centralized area with a common interface, it's much more exploitable," he says. "We use our internal web for everything."

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