Did HBO Pay The Hackers?

Many have now heard about the hack that occurred on HBO, which resulted in the leak of a Game Of Thrones episode prior to its release, and allegedly also resulted in the stealing of multiple contracts and other intellectual property. The hackers demanded something around 10million USD worth of BTC as a ransom payment. An email suggesting that HBO was willing to pay 250,000USD worth of BTC as a 'bug bounty' to the ransomers. That being said, they claim that this was just a delay tactic, as mentioned here:

Do you buy that it was just a delay tactic? I think that comes down to whether or not they had a team good enough to save them/reverse the hack, regain control. Being a huge company, I can't imagine they wouldn't have been willing to pay consulting companies for immediate help regarding this. So, I imagine they did have/get a team that was able to regain control. That being said, is it possible that they did end up paying the BTC? Yes, it is possible; however, I'm not sure if it happened. If it did, although possibly unavoidable, I think that that may set a precedent/environment that will attract additional hackers demanding BTC, as they can more easily escape tracing (through use of Tor, etc. in concert with BTC) .