In September 2002, HBO ran a print advertising campaign to promote the fourth season premiere of its signature hit series, The Sopranos (1999-2007) (Goetzl, 2002). The image featured the major characters of the show with brooding, somber expressions. They were looking in opposite directions, never making eye contact with one another or with the viewer.
The dramatic staging of this promo shot was quite deliberate, and not just because famed
photographer Annie Leibowitz was behind the camera. The photo intrigued both fans and critics (many of whom were unabashed, self-proclaimed fans of the show as well), and HBO used the ad to strategically target both groups (Goetzl, 2002; Brownfield, 2002). Knowing how familiar fans and critics were with The Sopranos, network executives bet on the show’s strong reputation and left its title off the ad – the only text included was the season premiere date – a strategy described by one critic as “the network’s air of soft-sell cool” (Brownfield, 2002, n.p.).
What makes HBO’s uses of such advertising unique compared to basic cable networks is that HBO execs wield marketing to create a “quality” brand identity that viewers will want to lay claim to because they feel it imbues them with a certain kind of high-level esteem and class. As Santo (2008) says, the “cultural capital” being sold in campaigns like the one by Leibowitz is an “exclusivity promised by HBO…supposedly grants paying viewers membership in a distinct community that clearly ranks above the riffraff who watch the standard broadcast and cable stations” (p. 33). This intent was evident in HBO’s executive vice president of marketing Eric Kessler’s statement about the campaign: “We wanted a print campaign that reflects the quality of the show.” (Editor, 2002, p. 22A) The notion of “quality” is also inherent in the slogan
embraced by the network in 1996, “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO,” which suggests that HBO and its programming are superior and, thus, so are its viewers. As Jaramillo (2002) pointed out about HBO in the early 2000s, the network “used its privileged position in pay cable (financially, legally, and demographically) to welcome the use of a very specific brand: ‘quality’” (p. 65).
“Quality” is the term HBO is most strongly associated with by both critics and scholars through its own marketing speak. But this language appears just as frequently, if not more, in the work of television critics and scholars. For example, critic John Dempsey (2001) described his
opinion of HBO programming in Variety, “The shows are hits because of the quality of the writing, acting, and directing, which operate on a level that few series on other networks come close to” (n.p.). Without using the word “quality,” Stephen Holden (1999) of The New York Times deemed The Sopranos (1999-2007) “the greatest work of American popular culture of the last quarter century” (n.p.) Cynthia Littleton (2010) of Variety went farther than discussing specific programming, offering instead wide-ranging thoughts on the network as a whole:
The brand is gold-plated, the most valuable and venerable in all of television. The corporate culture is renowned for its emphasis on excellence and innovation. The senior managers are the exec equivalent of the 1927 Yankees, a formidable team that has, for the most part, worked together for more than two decades. (p. A2)
Howard Rosenberg, a critic for the Los Angeles Times, also used “gold” as a stand-in for quality when he said: “Their stuff is hugely better than anyone else's. They have their clunkers, but most of their stuff is just gold - inventive, bold, and generally well executed,” (Haley, 2002, p. 3A).
Again, critics are not alone in praising HBO’s quality programming. Scholars Jaramillo (2002). Nelson (2007), McCabe and Akass (2007), and Smith (2011b) are among those who have analyzed HBO’s status as quality TV. Robin Nelson (2007) dissected the “scholars as fans” phenomenon in an article appropriately titled: “‘Quality Television’: The Sopranos is the Best Television Drama Ever…in my Humble Opinion…” Nelson’s (2007) key argument is that scholars should be more confident in asserting their subjective opinions about television
programs because that heightens the important debate over the cultural and political implications of quality television. While McCabe and Akass (2007) discuss how HBO deliberately pursued quality television in its original programming to attract an upscale audience. They also assert that HBO chose to air programming not found on other networks in order to stand out in a crowded competitive marketplace. Not every scholar is as celebratory, and it worth noting that others have been critical of the quality label. For example, Jaramillo (2007) draws attention to
the capitalistic impulses of HBO and how its branding perpetuates a hierarchy between quality viewers and their less-sophisticated, lower-class broadcast equivalents.
The above scholarship is useful in thinking through the meanings and consequences of HBO’s quality television, my analysis focuses on the nuances and discrepancies behind the network’s claims. I also analyze the work behind maintaining the quality TV brand and
motivations for doing so in the face of post-network era challenges. As a result, I do not engage in debating whether HBO’s association with producing quality programming originated from its marketing department or media critics. The difficulty of differentiating HBO executives’ marketing from journalistic discourse (and from scholarship as well) serves as evidence that the network’s branding tactics have often been successful.14 In this chapter, I interrogate this complexity by first questioning the viability of HBO’s quality TV claims. I then examine the role that trade journalists have played in bolstering and perpetuating this brand identity. In response to specific economic and cultural changes that impacted the television industry during the post-network era, HBO modified its programming. It did so by aggressively pursuing a similar strategy to Jim Collins’ (1992) describes as the reassembling of “coalition audiences,” which he used to describe efforts by networks to target multiple niche groups by combining genres. Later in this chapter, I will refine and update his concept slightly, particularly how HBO used it to target a diverse set of subscribers by offering “something for everyone.” Although HBO always utilized this approach by airing diverse programs, such as Sex and the City (1999- 2004), Real Sex (1990-2009), Da Ali G. Show (2003-2004) and Hard Knocks (2001-current), that targeted specific, niche demographics, I argue that this tactic became a key post-network era
14 Success, in this particular instance, refers to the fact that a vast amount of media coverage and
academic scholarship reiterated HBO’s marketing. Farther on in the chapter, I will quantify the success of HBO’s brand in terms of ratings and revenue.
survival tactic for the pay cabler. It became especially prominent during the 2004-2006 “slump” period, which I will also detail and was initiated by the rise of new cable competitors, the
endings of several hit series, and management changes. The coalition audiences strategy continued into the 2010s and proved an efficient means of increasing ancillary revenue for the network, which I will also discuss. Overall, I analyze how HBO was able to utilize its flexible and strong brand, which network executives systematically built and reinforced in expansive and, in fact, deceptive ways from 2001 to 2011, to manage and profit from historical challenges, such as new media technologies and increasing audience fragmentation.