Oh I agree about the effective marketing. HBO was one of the first to realize that if you make the consumer feel like they are getting a value, you can profit greatly. I have subbed to stuff after freebies even after knowing the psychology behind it. It is a wonderful tool that many companies either do not know how to implement correctly, or do not implement at all.
Side note/ramble... When I worked at Dish, HBO gave my call center a challenge. The team that sold the most HBO in a period of time, they would take to a big nice fancy dinner. Well, my team won, and they honored their word. Quite a few thousands of dollars later, and we all loved HBO. Plus all the prizes and swag they gave us... Holy crap. And it wasn't even a drop in HBOs bucket. No flinching at a dinner bill for 20 people that cost more than an average car. I think this service will be a success for their target, but also think they are trying to not undervalue their TV rights with the distributors.