Just woke up the Roku 3, and lo! and behold! there is an HBO Now app right there on the main menu.

The app has been out a few months (October?) and I never added it to my Roku because, well, I don't want it. But, kinda like what happened with Showtime a few months back, it showed up. Position 6 for me.

An ad for it, fine. It'll get exposure, and if I want it, I'll look at it. But just up and putting on there for me? Not cool, Roku. Not cool at all.

Basil wrote:

Just woke up the Roku 3, and lo! and behold! there is an HBO Now app right there on the main menu.

The app has been out a few months (October?) and I never added it to my Roku because, well, I don't want it. But, kinda like what happened with Showtime a few months back, it showed up. Position 6 for me.

An ad for it, fine. It'll get exposure, and if I want it, I'll look at it. But just up and putting on there for me? Not cool, Roku. Not cool at all.

Hello:

Wow!!!! For my friend Basil to be complaining about Roku.....Roku really screwed up on this. Usually Basil goes for bat for Roku and defends them all the time. But I agree. You don't force channels on users. True, you can delete afterwards, but some promotion on the main banner ad placement on the main menu should be enough of a promotion for Roku to push HBO Now (Or Showtime before). Forcing channels is a bit overkill and intrusive.

Came here looking for exactly this thread. When it happened with Showtime, I thought it was something I had done. Now, with this HBO Now channel, I see the start of a worrying new trend. We are forced to accept that almost half the main menu screen is a giant ad. But, adding channels to user lineup without consent is beyond the pale. Put a leash on whatever aggressive team is responsible for this and don't add things to my lineup again!

I'm another person that usually defends Roku, but this is inexcusable. Make it an ad, or even ask me if I want to add it, but don't just put it there.

I missed out on the Showtime brouhaha, but I was "blessed" by this. I did not even notice it until now, when I thought I'd browse while waiting for the Roku to reboot. There it was...and I already pay $15 a month to Sling.

What's done is done, and all we can hope for is that this does not happen again. But that was said last time too...

It happened on my parent's Roku too, but not mine. I wonder if this was intentional or some kind of mistake. Not a big deal to me, but I am curious. I really don't think adding a channel would make anyone decide to go and pay for that service. Who knows though.

JordanHarris wrote:

It happened on my parent's Roku too, but not mine. I wonder if this was intentional or some kind of mistake. Not a big deal to me, but I am curious. I really don't think adding a channel would make anyone decide to go and pay for that service. Who knows though.

It was intentional alright. Don't even think otherwise. And no it is not a big deal, but not cool either.

This happened to me, too. I just deleted it. It also happened to me with showtime earlier, but I thought I had mistakenly added it and proceeded to delete the channels.

Can they tell how many units it gets removed from? I removed both immediately upon seeing them. Maybe allow us to "opt in" for these things, otherwise don't push the new U2 album to everybody.

dgrace wrote:

... don't push the new U2 album to everybody.

That was exactly what I thought. After Apple caught all that flack and had to go into PR mode, you'd think other companies would learn to not do that. Roku must've not seen the news that day, or they wouldn't be pulling stunts like this.

Came here looking for this topic as I suddenly have both HBO Now and Showtime Anytime on my channel list. Even worse, it's not letting me delete them! Says that it does, but they remain, even after a reboot. I already have HBO Go and the regular Showtime channel, I don't need redundant channels that I won't use forced on me.

I could not remove it, says it can't be removed. Here's an idea Roku, stop pissing off your loyal customers! If I can't remove this app my Rokus will end up on Ebay and I'm done with you guys, Stop this crap now!

kbd48 wrote:

I could not remove it, says it can't be removed. Here's an idea Roku, stop pissing off your loyal customers! If I can't remove this app my Rokus will end up on Ebay and I'm done with you guys, Stop this crap now!

Everyone else was able to remove it - how are you trying to do it?

I think Roku is just having technical problems right now, according to the website. The channel store and other things are also down. Still annoying though.

mikebdoss wrote:

Everyone else was able to remove it - how are you trying to do it?

Like I always do, star button and select remove. It is getting stuck in a long loop and then a window pops up saying it can't be removed--that has never happened to me in removing any channel before. Obviously if they quit adding channels I don't want or ask for it would not be an issue. This is the one thing too far. Roku needs to stop doing this.