​Cord-cutters, rejoice: HBO is opening up its show vault to a streaming service.

For the first time, viewers without an HBO subscription will be able to stream certain older HBO shows via Amazon Prime Instant Video.

And that point bears repeating: before you rush out and cancel your HBO package: the agreement mostly covers older series and properties.

Previous seasons of current favorites will also come online over the course of the content deal, albeit three years after they initially aired on HBO. Those series include:

  • Girls
  • The Newsroom
  • Veep

As part of the deal, the channel’s own streaming app HBO GO will become available on Amazon’s new streaming box device Fire TV, with a tentative year-end target launch date.

HBO Programming Sales President Charles Schreger said the network feels the exposure from the Amazon deal will help convert streaming viewers into subscribers.

The first wave of shows comes online at Amazon on May 21, and will include:

- All seasons of The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, Six Feet Under, Eastbound & Down, Enlightened and Flight of the Conchords

- Miniseries: including Angels in America, Band of Brothers, John Adams, The Pacific and Parade’s End

- Select seasons of current series such as Boardwalk Empire, Treme and True Blood

- Original movies like Game Change, Too Big To Fail and You Don’t Know Jack

- Documentaries including the Autopsy and Iceman series, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and When the Levees Broke

- Original comedy specials from Lewis Black, Ellen DeGeneres, Louis CK and Bill Maher

Brief Take: HBO is realizing that their old fortress mentality might be keeping some people outside of the HBO gates. Giving them a taste of the types of shows that are currently airing could turn them into paying converts.

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