Andy Samberg, host of the 67th Annual Emmy Awards Sunday night, gave out his real HBO Now password to viewers. The password actually worked.
In his opening monologue of the 67th Annual Emmy Awards, Samberg quipped about various celebrities and TV shows as is the usual introduction for the yearly award show. This time Samberg, who rose to fame as a member of Saturday Night Live's comedy ensemble and now stars in his own FOX sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, also took a shot at HBO, which may have been in on the fun.
Back in January, HBO CEO Richard Plepler raised eyebrows when he stated that the company wasn't concerned with the proliferation of viewers sharing password for streaming accounts on its HBO Go and HBO Now platforms. "It's not a fundamental problem," said Plepler, "and the externality of it is that it presents the brand to more and more people, and gives them an opportunity hopefully to become addicted to it. What we're in the business of doing is building addicts, of building video addicts. The way we do that is by exposing our product, our brand, our shows, to more and more people."
For the sake of comedy, Samberg took Plepler to the mat by not only stating his HBO Now username and Password live on the Emmys, but also flashing it up on the screen as he did so.
"Luckily for you, the CEO of HBO recently said he doesn't think password sharing for their streaming services is a problem. So here's my HBO Now login," he joked.
The account, "Khaleesifan3@emmyhost.com" and password "password1" actually worked when viewers logged in, but at this point, the account is displaying an error message that indicates there are too many devices using it. That doesn't necessarily mean its been disabled, just that there's an unknown limit on the number of users that can utilize an account at a single time.
It's also likely that HBO was informed beforehand that Samberg planned the stunt and agreed to it because of the goodwill and free advertising it would generate. Indeed, after Samberg's announcement, HBO tweeted: "Lucky for you, @AndySamberg is a very generous #Emmys host" and followed with a later tweet: "If anyone needs some @HBO recommendations, we'll be here all night. Apparently. Thanks, @AndySamberg. #Emmys."
