Television, Redefined

Not all American television is catchphrase comedy and gutless drama. Niall Kitson takes a look at HBO, the subscription channel responsible for trailblazing programmes such as Oz, Sex and the City and The Sopranos.

The Larry Sanders Show showed what it could do, Oz would never have been made without it and The Sopranos ended up making history because of it. In America today one slogan has become a mantra for home audiences in search of quality drama: It's not TV, it's HBO. Working from a customer base of some 30 million subscribers (a mere ten per cent of the market) the premium rate cable service has created a niche market as a channel for adults that has become an antidote to the craven culture of network television and MTV that no longer plays any music.

A member of the AOL Time Warner conglomerate with annual profits in the region of $800million Home Box Office was originally intended as a movie channel sold on the premise that it would show quality films uncut and without ad breaks, something of a novelty for American television. 30 years on and the station's output of programming, high-end TV movies and theatrical features have cemented the HBO brand's credibility as more than a place but as an idea that television need not be associated with disposability and shameless commercialism but as a medium in it's own right.

Primarily responsible for HBO's contribution to programming is Chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht, a fifteen-year veteran of the channel along with his Senior Vice President of Original Programming Carolyn Strauss. Between them HBO the first port of call for writers and producers vying for a degree of artistic kudos for their work. And now as the station's 'first phenomenon' bows out after six series now is as good a time as any to examine the gentrification of a medium and what makes TV, TV and HBO, HBO.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 97