Abstract
In today’s world of “Peak TV,” in which seemingly every kind of television entertainment is available at our fingertips, it’s easy to forget how groundbreaking Home Box Office (HBO) was beginning in the 1980s and continuing into the 21st century. Bursting into a world dominated by the three broadcast networks and their largely anodyne programming, HBO brought movies, sports, documentaries, and—eventually—stunningly innovative episodic series. The quality of the network’s programming not only allowed it to charge usurious subscription fees but also to actually brand itself with a straight face as “It’s not TV . . . it’s HBO.”
Now, Felix Gillette—enterprise editor at Bloomberg News—and John Koblin—a media reporter for The New York Times—have taken that branding as the title of their book, It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO, which tells the story of the network’s ascent from its modest beginnings as a New York cable channel. The authors attribute the network’s success to its reliance on artists over data, its willingness to take chances, and the fact that it was not driven by a “visionary founder” (p. 367) but rather an ever-changing collection of creative managers.
The network began as a side project of magazine publisher Time, Inc., which sought to wire New York City neighborhoods with cable in the early 1970s. At that time, viewers purchased cable for the most part because they were in an area that couldn’t receive broadcast signals—there was little if any “original” programming on cable. HBO, however, sought to provide content viewers couldn’t get anywhere else, which at first consisted largely of year-old movies and New York sports games that weren’t already licensed by someone else. Viewers were mostly unimpressed, and the network was unable to expand past the New York region because it could not afford the Bell system’s microwave and landline connectivity. “Much to Time’s dismay,” Gillette and Koblin note, “HBO was going nowhere” (p. 4).
But HBO president Gerald Levin had an idea. He convinced Time to pony up money to lease space on RCA’s Satcom1 satellite, which would allow HBO to bypass Bell and provide programming directly to cable operators across the country. The proof of concept became the so-called “Thrilla in Manilla” heavyweight boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in October 1975, which HBO simulcast live much to the “giddy excitement” of local cable operators (p. 5). In the months following the fight, HBO representatives traveled across the country convincing cable systems to invest in earth stations that could receive the network’s satellite signal. The network offered a share of its monthly service fees and helped promote local cable operators’ high-tech investment in their local communities. By the end of 1977, HBO had more than 1.6 million subscribers.
Having established its viability, HBO needed a continual stream of programming, and the bulk of It’s Not TV chronicles the network’s efforts over time to fill its schedule with content. Although its very name, “Home Box Office,” implied Hollywood blockbusters, in reality the network struggled to maintain good relationships with movie studios, who feared that airing content on HBO would have negative effects of their bottom lines. In addition, a poor contract decision by HBO in 1984 put the network on the hook for $40 million for the rights to air Ghostbusters, an amount that essentially wiped out the network’s profits that year. Time, Inc., of course noticed this, and laid off more than 100 employees while elevating programming executive Michael Fuchs to CEO.
Fuchs hated the “canned entertainment” (p. 15) provided by the broadcast networks and was determined to counterprogram HBO. Specifically, he felt the networks catered to female audiences and so initial efforts at original programming focused on titillating documentary series (Real Sex), blue comedians, and boxing. In 1987, the network invested heavily in controversial heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson, who Gillette and Koblin note “was the first in a long series of HBO antiheroes to come” (p. 38). Although initially resistant to scripted series, Fuchs eagerly signed comedian Garry Shandling to do a series called The Larry Sanders Show, a parody of late-night talk shows. Critics loved the show, which focused on characters who were Machiavellian and egotistical off camera even as their public personas exuded warmth and compassion. In many ways, The Larry Sanders Show ushered in a period when HBO’s scripted series would take center stage.
That period, which lasted until roughly 2012, saw an almost continual stream of groundbreaking series air on HBO, including Oz, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire. Each series, in its own ways, broke conventions and pushed boundaries. HBO became a “club of auteurs” (p. 174) where artists knew they would be listened to, understood, and trusted. Gillette and Koblin are at their best when they’re telling the sometimes-gossipy tales about how the network listened to and nurtured its strongest content creators during this period.
But at the same time, seeds of discontent were growing. HBO was initially shielded from adverse effects of Time Warner’s sale to AOL in 2000, but eventually the bean counters demanded a greater focus on the bottom line. Netflix, which began its streaming service in 2007, was now all the rage among the corporate suits, but HBO staffers were skeptical—not only were they suffering from what Gillette and Koblin call “internet PTSD” (p. 184) after the sale to AOL, they valued the relationships with cable operators they had built over many years and thus were more reluctant to embrace a direct-to-customer model. Although Time-Warner had spun itself out from under AOL by 2009, HBO continued to slide, losing quality shows like House of Cards and Mad Men to rivals. At the same time Netflix “was growing synonymous with a new, better way of watching commercial-free Hollywood entertainment at home,” (p. 238) Gillette and Koblin contend.
It’s Not TV is a highly readable, well-sourced account of the rise and revolution of HBO. The authors do not speculate much on what the future holds for the network, but perhaps that’s for the best. After all, who actually knows what “Peak TV” will evolve into and what place HBO—and for that matter Netflix—will occupy in it. Gillette and Koblin offer a quote from Netflix executive Ted Sarandos that may sum up what we might see in the coming years: “The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.”