Chris Welch report­ing for The Verge:

Ama­zon and HBO have signed an exten­sive, mul­ti-year agree­ment that will bring many of the pre­mi­um chan­nel’s great­est shows includ­ing The Sopra­nos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire to Ama­zon Prime Instant Video. The deal also includes ​“ear­ly” sea­sons of Board­walk Empire and True Blood. New­er shows like Girls, The News­room and Veep will even­tu­al­ly be made avail­able to Prime sub­scribers, but not until three years after they’ve first aired on HBO. And oth­er hits like Game of Thrones aren’t even men­tioned as part of the deal, so HBO may be hold­ing at least some pop­u­lar con­tent away from Ama­zon’s on-demand streaming. 

Big move by HBO. Their first deal that does­n’t require a cable sub­scrip­tion; a move I nev­er thought pos­si­ble con­sid­er­ing their par­ent com­pa­ny is Time Warner.

How­ev­er, the deal does­n’t include new shows. HBO’s back cat­a­log is great, but most peo­ple are hun­gry for their lat­est shows. But let’s say we’re ok with get­ting old­er episodes, how long are we sup­posed to wait? ​“Three years after they’ve first aired on HBO.” Ridicu­lous. While this is progress, they need to do better.