The current period of American television is remarkable for many reasons. Societies and media habits are changing rapidly in the face of technological advances. Yet, broadcasters are betting their prize monies on the traditional long-form style of story telling. Look around and you’ll notice an emerging consensus on how current drama series are the television equivalent to literary novels. (Comparisons are already being drawn to the serialized short stories of Charles Dickens who would first publish his works in a weekly/monthly format and later as a complete novel) One of the many remarkable aspects of this period is the scholarly documentation of current developments. And almost all academicians, journalists & bloggers agree that the current “Golden Age of Television” (this is the 3rd, by the way!) owes immensely to one company – HBO. By the turn of the 21st century, HBO set the gold standard for scripted content with shows like “Oz” (1997), “Sex and The City” (1998), “The Sopranos” (1999) and “The Wire” (2002). In my mind, their existing business model is so efficient it allows them to reach out to a global audience much larger than they can fathom. TV shows primarily aimed at Americans are finding more viewers outside of their legit subscriber base. Its as if the suits are being held back by archaic traditional rules while the producers are leap-frogging into a future where stories are cutting across cultural boundaries. Probably that must be one of the unsaid rules among studio execs of the Golden Age – to put faith in works of creative writers and allow them to push the envelope with bolder experiments. As an Indian, I find all this is too complex to wrap my head around. The domestic TV business is heavily dependent on advertising and any show’s survival is linked to the amount of interest it can generate among sponsors. Conversely, high profile shows (like twitter’s favorite show Satyameva Jayate) is allowed to stay on-air with declining ratings as long as the moolah keeps flowing. But why is HBO so different? And how did it all this start?

The most recent attempt to answer this question is Dean J.DeFino’s book “The HBO Effect”. The central thesis of his book tries to prove that HBO’s fame is not an aberration but a product of the broadcasting environment at that time. The author certainly dives deep into his research to justify the role of HBO as an avant-garde in America’s culture. This is a must-read for admirers of the brand and serious academicians alike. (more…)