HBO Now Falls Short

Time Warner Inc.’s streaming service, HBO Now, has signed up 800,000 subscribers, falling short of at least one estimate of 1.4 million.

HBO, which hadn’t previously disclosed the number of Now subscribers, has been expanding the $15-a-month Web service to compete against Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. Barton Crockett, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets & Co, had estimated that HBO Now had gained 1.4 million subscribers.

HBO Chief Executive Officer Richard Plepler, on a conference call, said HBO Now was still not available on some devices like Sony PlayStation and Microsoft XBox and that new programming from Jon Stewart and others hadn’t yet been introduced to the service. HBO plans to more aggressively market the streaming service in 2016, he said.

Among streaming services, Netflix had 43.4 million paid U.S. subscribers at the end of 2015, and Dish Network Corp.’s Web service Sling TV, which offers about 20 channels for $20 a month, had about 394,000 subscribers by the end of the third quarter of 2015, according to Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson.