HBO: From Hitmen to Hitless?

Inside the cable network's post-Sopranos plan to reclaim its reputation for edgy TV.

Brad Trent

by Tom Lowry

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True Blood creator Alan Ball (left) with actors Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin Michael Grecco

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Has HBO (TWX) lost the magic? That question has bedeviled Time Warner's premium cable channel ever since The Sopranos ended its seven-season run in June and ascended to rerun heaven. Time and again, HBO has failed to deliver a follow-up hit. Its greatest hope, John from Cincinnati, so perplexed viewers with its attempts to meld the zen of surfing with gnostic Christian themes that HBO pulled the plug. And it's telling that HBO, supercautious about putting programs online for free, did exactly that to create buzz for In Treatment, which follows the travails of a psychologist and has been on air only since late January.

Something had to give.

And on Mar. 16, it did. HBO announced that Carolyn Strauss, the entertainment president who helped shepherd popular shows into being, including Six Feet Under, would be stepping down from her post after working at the network for 22 of her 44 years. Strauss declined to comment on the shakeup, but insiders say she was pushed by a new regime that had lost patience with her and HBO's dearth of big hits. Strauss' ouster follows by 10 months the wrenching departure of Chris Albrecht, the programming czar who left after being charged with assaulting his girlfriend.

The turmoil at HBO lacks the bloody mayhem of the network's most famous show. But there is enough dramatic tension to keep HBO's 29 million subscribers glued to their screens. For years the network had cornered the market on quality television. Now HBO is beset with pesky challengers: Showtime, FX, TNT, AMC—all are putting on the kind of provocative programming that once defined HBO. That competition comes at a time when HBO has been attracting a meager 2% more subscribers a year.

HBO is an insular place where people stick around. In the space of one year these loyalists have lost two of their guiding lights. Now, the new management plans to break with tradition by looking outside for Strauss' replacement. The two executives in charge of programming, Richard Plepler, a former public relations guy, and Michael Lombardo, an entertainment lawyer by trade, hope to make their decision before Apr. 16, when HBO will show off its slate of new programming. Keen to find someone who can help HBO get the magic back, they are even contemplating bringing in a movie person. "There was a sense out there that we thought of ourselves as a little too precious," says Plepler. "We want to open the door and let the air in."

Once upon a time, the slogan "It's Not TV. It's HBO," however self-aggrandizing, rang true. Between 1998 and 2007, HBO owned Sunday night, which previously had been a viewing dead zone, and set a new standard for TV drama. HBO addicts didn't get much done on Monday mornings because everyone was deconstructing the previous night's Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, or The Sopranos. Plus, HBO was known for pushing the envelope harder than anyone. Who doesn't remember when Sex and the City's Charlotte used the C word? Or the first time they saw one of the gruesome deaths that began each Six Feet Under episode? Or, for that matter, the time Tony Soprano snuffed his nephew?

TRUSTING THE WRITERS

No one had more to do with bringing those indelible moments to the small screen than Chris Albrecht. A former stand-up comedian and talent agent, he joined HBO in 1985, at a time when the network was still mostly known for showing Hollywood movies and for airing live boxing matches. Albrecht seemed to have an innate sense of what an HBO show should be: good storytelling with a strong point of view. In his mind, The Sopranos was not about mobsters but a riff on the American family—a theme, he believed, that had broad appeal. And HBO has hewed closely to that philosophy ever since.

Albrecht developed a close and collegial relationship with his writers and producers. He understood they had egos and was careful not to big-foot them. He made a point of listening to their ideas, complaints, and personal problems.