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Rolling over the television range like a dust storm, HBO’s publicity campaign for its New Orleans mini-series, Treme, is gritty and gustful. Multiple characters strut and cake walk through languid sub plots. There are about 115 million HUTS in American (households using television). About 41 million of those get HBO.

When you’re talking multimillions of dollars per episode plus promotion, the question is: what’s the benefit? In the old days HBO justified the giant costs of these tent pole shows by saying they cut down the churn. That means they stopped people from disconnecting.

Today, there is less need to address churn because the subscriber base keeps growing nicely; in large part because of big mass appeal shows like Treme. But HBO still reaches little more than about one third of the HUTS. They’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

Many of those HUTS are filled with younger viewers who are more comfortable watching on laptops and smart phones. Let’s put HBO’s 41 million subscribers in perspective. Hulu, the online TV service, passed the 41 million unique viewer mark in the summer of 2009. Then it was less than two years old. It took HBO forty years to achieve the same number.

HBO understands this, and is launching it’s own online service called “TV Everywhere.” But you need to be a cable subscriber in order to get it. This is not an audience builder; it is merely a cable customer convenience. The premium cable services like HBO, Showtime, and Starz need to redefine themselves as streaming content providers instead of cable premium services. Since MovieWithMe.com is about streaming media, we want to encourage them.

Jeff Bewkes (Time Warner CEO) ought to look at Hertz and Zip Car. Hertz sees itself as a car rental company. Zip Car sees itself as a convenience company. You rent from Hertz to go someplace, you rent from Zip Car to do errands. Hertz makes you come to its offices, rents by the day and punishes you if you don’t put in gas. Zip Car tells you where the nearest car is parked, gives you the keys and gas ( and your membership card does the rest).

Isn’t this what all those HULU watchers want? Time for Time-Warner to see the HULUS from the HUTS.