The 1984 Gibson novel Neuromancer begins with the line, "The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel."

At the time, this unambiguously meant the speckled gray of analog TV static: radio noise amplified and played out through a CRT's scanning electron gun. However, before too many years had passed, new TVs started displaying a solid blue screen when tuned to a dead channel.

And in 1996, Neil Gaiman riffed on Gibson's line, in Neverwhere: "The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel."

For one, a lot of people actually don't know what TV static is. Analog broadcasts stopped almost 16 years ago, and before that, most younger people had cable.

That's the neat part, people don't know what it is, and will find out the history of it if they decided to look it up. There's a reason Marvel's intro where they flip through all the comic book is so popular and recognizable, it's their history.

NPR did a podcast on those "bumpers" (there's a term that I don't recall). HBO wanted to change theirs for the reason you indicated as well as the fact that it was rather long compared to Netflix's and others. They paid a lot of money to develop others and also do testing\ polling with end users. The original beat out all the rest because it's been their bumper for so long.

a lot of people actually don't know what TV static is.

What? Everyone knows what TV static is. This is like boomers claiming that kids don't know what vinyl records are. You just think everyone younger than you is stupid...

They should bring back the original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPYbzfwIJRA

it could be something like "hbo.. if you like it, zazlav will probably kill it. enjoy!"

I always thought it was an apt metaphor for HBO as a service. Starts out analog and low resolution (because of the compression issues but it helps the visual) that clarifies what it is before having proper branding arrive. As a former user of HBO Go and HBO Now, it's nice to see them finally find their identity.

But yeah, that logo bumper needs to change.

HBO Max, for the brief period of time it existed, had a more fitting 'bumper'. Hacks, which started out as a 'Max Original' still had it in season 3, but The Penguin, which was a Max Original until it wasn't, has the fuzzy version (I've had players that struggle with it a bit, but I doubt HBO gives a shit about the quality of my experience pirating their stuff)

If they stick with it, it’ll sort itself out over time. They are most of the way there by now. The newest codecs are pretty dang good.