7 ms·

It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO

50 points by syliconadder 4y ago

brudgers 4y ago
https://archive.ph/2U0GM https://archive.ph/2U0GM
game_the0ry 4y ago
I am a fan of hbo, and have been for a long time, but I do miss the adult content: sexo urbano, showgirls: glitz and angst, taxicab confessions, etc. I vote to bring that back.
- echelon 4y ago
  Twitter and Reddit have shown that the population doesn't care if porn is mixed in with everything else. It's fine, it's fun, and it's harmless. The American WASP prudishness needs to die. We love our violence in film and drama. We should love our sexuality too. Game of Thrones was better for it.
  - afavour 4y ago
    You’ve also explained why it won’t come back, though: the internet. I remember taxicab confessions being compelling because it was a rare example of people talking openly about adult things. These days that’s everywhere online.
    - echelon 4y ago
      Both Netflix and HBO are showing full frontal nudity. Male and female. And the shows that do are incredibly popular. Worrying about it is a generational thing.
  - searealist 4y ago
    Not everyone has made their sexual fetish their identity and wants to see porn all over the place. edit: The parent comment originally advocated putting hardcore porn into all content, but was edited.
    - wkat4242 4y ago
      TV shows are about human life and sexuality is as much part of life as anything. A lot more than violence. I do also wish this wasn't such a taboo. But the US is far from the only country that's so sensitive about it. Pornography in China is forbidden, in India is very iffy. In Islamic countries it can be extremely illegal. Even in the Netherlands where I'm from movies have become a lot more prudish since the 70s/80s.
      - fleddr 4y ago
        In the 80s/90s, on Dutch TV we'd have daytime deodorant commercials on public channels featuring naked women applying the product. Wasn't even considered sexual content, and in no way shielded from kids either. The context isn't sexual, and it's a perfectly normal body part. The sexualization of the human body is nothing but a cultural invention.
        bogomipz 4y ago
        I'm curious why and when did those go away exactly on Dutch TV?
        fleddr 4y ago
        I only have speculative answers on offer... Somehow the sexual revolution of the 60s/70s running out of steam, and a correction taking place. A growing influence of American culture as well as Muslim immigrants, both more conservative. And perhaps feminism changing course.
        bogomipz 4y ago
        Interesting. I think those are all very plausible and yet oddly we also now live in a hyper-sexualized mainstream advertising culture in the West.
        dagw 4y ago
  - funstuff007 4y ago
    > the population doesn't care if porn is mixed in with everything else Good luck bringing that up at the water cooler at work.
  - pstuart 4y ago
    Game of Thrones got a little too "rapey" for many (myself included).
    - PrufferFrish 4y ago
      It especially sucked because none of those major rape scenes were in the books. They were added by the show runners. Drago didn't rape Daenerys; he seduced her. Ramsey Bolton never raped Sansa (and also never married her, that was a different character entirely, cut from the show). Jaime never raped Cercei.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    "WASP prudishness" doesn't explain why there's less "purely sexual" TV and film content now than in the 90s.
    - echelon 4y ago
      There was a ton of nudity in 80's movies. The internet stole the show and actors started pushing back against it because it was still culturally taboo. Only now are we starting to see a big reversion and normalization of nudity in the arts. Netflix and HBO are dialing up on nudity and sex. Millennials and Gen Z like it, and they have the metrics to show for it. https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17369/heres-why-youve-been-seeing-more-and-more-dicks-on-tv https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17369/heres-why-youve-been-...
      - majormajor 4y ago
        80s, 90s, not sure we need to make a big difference there. Since then I think what you're seeing is more of a fracturing than an overall increase or decrease in prudishness. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-sex-scene-is-dead-long-live-the-sex-scene https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/t... This talks about the small-screen stuff (and indie film) and dicks like you link out; but also points out the shift in mainstream cinema. There's no more dicks or even breasts in tentpole blockbusters or the increasingly-adult-embraced "kids" films than there used to be. Even your R-rated stuff tends to have less of the sort of "coincidental" not-central-to-the-plot sex scenes than you would've seen a few decades ago. But what's left blockbuster film has found a place in "prestige TV" and by being moved less front-and-center, take-the-family-to-the-theater, it's been able to be amplified since entertainment as a whole is more fractured and it's less one-size-fits-all.
        stcroixx 4y ago
        I assume this is to sanitize the big blockbusters for the Chinese market.
- paxys 4y ago
  It's mostly a generational gap. A lot of us grew up in an environment where it would be a national scandal and the FCC would open an investigation if someone said a bad word on TV. The main allure of the shows you mention was their taboo nature. Ask anyone under 30 today if they want the same, and they'll shrug and go "if it makes sense in the script, sure".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
TMWNN 4y ago
I find interesting that HBO, a US TV network, has become a worldwide brand name in a way that CBS,[1] NBC, and ABC didn't; only BBC has also transcended its home country this way, and did so with a 50-year head start. To global audiences HBO is associated with Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, and other top-quality TV; The Last of Us seems to be on its way to adding to the list. Outside TV networks, I would count Disney, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon as also having global heft as brand names. None except Netflix has yet gained worldwide recognition for their shows and brands, yet, though (not even Disney and The Mandalorian). [1] Cf. the rebranding of CBS All Access to Paramount Plus
- rubatuga 4y ago
  Also Silicon Valley!
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    ATT fired all the old HBO leadership, so I have doubts if they maintain the quality of shows they used to. Also, the new leaders at Discovery have a track record of saturating their viewers with shitty, low quality reality style shows.
- soneca 4y ago
  I think Apple is on the right track. A lot of good shows, a few great ones. Severance is probably the one that might be their Sopranos.
- yrdmb 4y ago
  > I find interesting that HBO, a US TV network, has become a worldwide brand name in a way that CBS,[1] NBC, and ABC didn't; That's because CBS, NBC and ABC are national broadcast networks while HBO is a cable network, like CNN. CNN is broadcast internationlly. > only BBC has also transcended its home country this way, That's only because of the british empire. Who but their former slave colonies watches BBC? > None except Netflix has yet gained worldwide recognition for their shows and brands, yet, though (not even Disney and The Mandalorian). Isn't Friends the most popular tv show worldwide? People may watch it on Netflix but it was originally broadcast on NBC as part of the "Must see tv" thursdays.
varelse 4y ago
[dead]
amadeuspagel 4y ago
> That’s character in literature: not a stooge in your reverie of fair play and sound politics, but a creature of his time. > Take the best moment in Aaron Sorkin’s imperfect show for HBO, The Newsroom ... This moment is a speech that contains among other things the incredible claim that the US is one-hundred-and-seventy-eighth in infant mortality, something that Sorkin had from a table he read upside down. That's character: not a brilliant hero, but someone unable to read a table correctly.
roldie 4y ago
I don't see how HBO can maintain their reputation and prestige with the way Zaslav is running things. Canceling niche, creative, and risk-taking shows and removing accesses to back catalog shows like Westworld entirely. Flooding HBO with cheap Discovery reality shows, and now forcing HBO Max to merge apps with Discovery. All of these are great ways to dilute the HBO brand and make it insignificant.
- nottathrowaway3 4y ago
  The article talks about how great the HBO gritty depressing character dramas like The Wire, The Last of Us, etc., were. That kind of content was interesting and fresh in the 90s and 00s. Personally though, whose life is so great today that they need to escape by watching something depressing? Most people I know (and knew) were generally feeling beat down, afraid for the future, tired of not being able to say what they feel, etc. The HBO content thesis of "just make it more fucked up" is not going to sell as well as it did. I liked GOT because it was fun escapism into a simpler world, with dragons and wars instead of [insert tiresome/pretentious thing about Western society]. (Also because it was written in the 90s.) If they want to recapture their lost market they should try producing more optimistic/escapist programming. Adapt something that people want to watch. I'd pay for it if there was something like GOT. Doubt that it will happen in the current cultural/political climate though.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    I suspect that fiction tends to be opposite of reality. In the 1950s and 1960s, even though the economy was doing great, there was a lot of darkness in the world. There was the cold war, which was terrifying (you kids think it’s bad now?), we still had World War 2, Korea, and even World War 1 veterans around. We were still coming to grips with The Holocaust, and counterculture was just starting up with The Beats (not the Liverpool moptops). We had mass starvation, race riots, and a lot of fear. Fiction, in those days, was pretty fluffy and optimistic. The last couple of decades, before the current one, had seen a lot less of that kind of darkness, and escapism became fairly dark. Dystopian fantasy became en vogue, etc. Things are getting dark again. I suspect fiction may lighten up. We’ll see…
willis936 4y ago
When was HBO not an incredible and influential arthouse? Mr. Show ran from 1995 to 1998 and galvanized the careers and tone of comedians that would carry adult swim and comedy central through their golden eras. Lightning in a bottle is par for HBO.
robbiet480 4y ago
Now if only HBO Max had a world class Apple TV app to match their world class content. Not expecting it to go anywhere but downhill from here what with the coming HBO Max/Discovery+ merger.
remote_phone 4y ago
HBO is the only streaming service I am willing to pay $15/month for. I feel like the quality of their shoes are better than any of the rest especially compared to Netflix. Netflix content is very hit or miss but the last bunch of shows and especially the movies were terrible.
- barkerja 4y ago
  TV+ is close and seems to be following the HBO model. At at a fraction of the cost (currently). But I agree. HBO is one TV service I don't mind paying annually for.

50 points by syliconadder 4y ago

https://archive.ph/2U0GM https://archive.ph/2U0GM

I am a fan of hbo, and have been for a long time, but I do miss the adult content: sexo urbano, showgirls: glitz and angst, taxicab confessions, etc. I vote to bring that back.

echelon 4y ago
Twitter and Reddit have shown that the population doesn't care if porn is mixed in with everything else. It's fine, it's fun, and it's harmless. The American WASP prudishness needs to die. We love our violence in film and drama. We should love our sexuality too. Game of Thrones was better for it.
- afavour 4y ago
  You’ve also explained why it won’t come back, though: the internet. I remember taxicab confessions being compelling because it was a rare example of people talking openly about adult things. These days that’s everywhere online.
  - echelon 4y ago
    Both Netflix and HBO are showing full frontal nudity. Male and female. And the shows that do are incredibly popular. Worrying about it is a generational thing.
- searealist 4y ago
  Not everyone has made their sexual fetish their identity and wants to see porn all over the place. edit: The parent comment originally advocated putting hardcore porn into all content, but was edited.
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    TV shows are about human life and sexuality is as much part of life as anything. A lot more than violence. I do also wish this wasn't such a taboo. But the US is far from the only country that's so sensitive about it. Pornography in China is forbidden, in India is very iffy. In Islamic countries it can be extremely illegal. Even in the Netherlands where I'm from movies have become a lot more prudish since the 70s/80s.
    - fleddr 4y ago
      In the 80s/90s, on Dutch TV we'd have daytime deodorant commercials on public channels featuring naked women applying the product. Wasn't even considered sexual content, and in no way shielded from kids either. The context isn't sexual, and it's a perfectly normal body part. The sexualization of the human body is nothing but a cultural invention.
      - bogomipz 4y ago
        I'm curious why and when did those go away exactly on Dutch TV?
        fleddr 4y ago
        I only have speculative answers on offer... Somehow the sexual revolution of the 60s/70s running out of steam, and a correction taking place. A growing influence of American culture as well as Muslim immigrants, both more conservative. And perhaps feminism changing course.
        bogomipz 4y ago
        Interesting. I think those are all very plausible and yet oddly we also now live in a hyper-sexualized mainstream advertising culture in the West.
        dagw 4y ago
- funstuff007 4y ago
  > the population doesn't care if porn is mixed in with everything else Good luck bringing that up at the water cooler at work.
- pstuart 4y ago
  Game of Thrones got a little too "rapey" for many (myself included).
  - PrufferFrish 4y ago
    It especially sucked because none of those major rape scenes were in the books. They were added by the show runners. Drago didn't rape Daenerys; he seduced her. Ramsey Bolton never raped Sansa (and also never married her, that was a different character entirely, cut from the show). Jaime never raped Cercei.
- majormajor 4y ago
  "WASP prudishness" doesn't explain why there's less "purely sexual" TV and film content now than in the 90s.
  - echelon 4y ago
    There was a ton of nudity in 80's movies. The internet stole the show and actors started pushing back against it because it was still culturally taboo. Only now are we starting to see a big reversion and normalization of nudity in the arts. Netflix and HBO are dialing up on nudity and sex. Millennials and Gen Z like it, and they have the metrics to show for it. https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17369/heres-why-youve-been-seeing-more-and-more-dicks-on-tv https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17369/heres-why-youve-been-...
    - majormajor 4y ago
      80s, 90s, not sure we need to make a big difference there. Since then I think what you're seeing is more of a fracturing than an overall increase or decrease in prudishness. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-sex-scene-is-dead-long-live-the-sex-scene https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/t... This talks about the small-screen stuff (and indie film) and dicks like you link out; but also points out the shift in mainstream cinema. There's no more dicks or even breasts in tentpole blockbusters or the increasingly-adult-embraced "kids" films than there used to be. Even your R-rated stuff tends to have less of the sort of "coincidental" not-central-to-the-plot sex scenes than you would've seen a few decades ago. But what's left blockbuster film has found a place in "prestige TV" and by being moved less front-and-center, take-the-family-to-the-theater, it's been able to be amplified since entertainment as a whole is more fractured and it's less one-size-fits-all.
      - stcroixx 4y ago
        I assume this is to sanitize the big blockbusters for the Chinese market.
paxys 4y ago
It's mostly a generational gap. A lot of us grew up in an environment where it would be a national scandal and the FCC would open an investigation if someone said a bad word on TV. The main allure of the shows you mention was their taboo nature. Ask anyone under 30 today if they want the same, and they'll shrug and go "if it makes sense in the script, sure".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

TMWNN 4y ago

I find interesting that HBO, a US TV network, has become a worldwide brand name in a way that CBS,[1] NBC, and ABC didn't; only BBC has also transcended its home country this way, and did so with a 50-year head start. To global audiences HBO is associated with Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, and other top-quality TV; The Last of Us seems to be on its way to adding to the list. Outside TV networks, I would count Disney, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon as also having global heft as brand names. None except Netflix has yet gained worldwide recognition for their shows and brands, yet, though (not even Disney and The Mandalorian). [1] Cf. the rebranding of CBS All Access to Paramount Plus

rubatuga 4y ago
Also Silicon Valley!
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  ATT fired all the old HBO leadership, so I have doubts if they maintain the quality of shows they used to. Also, the new leaders at Discovery have a track record of saturating their viewers with shitty, low quality reality style shows.
soneca 4y ago
I think Apple is on the right track. A lot of good shows, a few great ones. Severance is probably the one that might be their Sopranos.
yrdmb 4y ago
> I find interesting that HBO, a US TV network, has become a worldwide brand name in a way that CBS,[1] NBC, and ABC didn't; That's because CBS, NBC and ABC are national broadcast networks while HBO is a cable network, like CNN. CNN is broadcast internationlly. > only BBC has also transcended its home country this way, That's only because of the british empire. Who but their former slave colonies watches BBC? > None except Netflix has yet gained worldwide recognition for their shows and brands, yet, though (not even Disney and The Mandalorian). Isn't Friends the most popular tv show worldwide? People may watch it on Netflix but it was originally broadcast on NBC as part of the "Must see tv" thursdays.

varelse 4y ago

[dead]

amadeuspagel 4y ago

> That’s character in literature: not a stooge in your reverie of fair play and sound politics, but a creature of his time. > Take the best moment in Aaron Sorkin’s imperfect show for HBO, The Newsroom ... This moment is a speech that contains among other things the incredible claim that the US is one-hundred-and-seventy-eighth in infant mortality, something that Sorkin had from a table he read upside down. That's character: not a brilliant hero, but someone unable to read a table correctly.

roldie 4y ago

I don't see how HBO can maintain their reputation and prestige with the way Zaslav is running things. Canceling niche, creative, and risk-taking shows and removing accesses to back catalog shows like Westworld entirely. Flooding HBO with cheap Discovery reality shows, and now forcing HBO Max to merge apps with Discovery. All of these are great ways to dilute the HBO brand and make it insignificant.

nottathrowaway3 4y ago
The article talks about how great the HBO gritty depressing character dramas like The Wire, The Last of Us, etc., were. That kind of content was interesting and fresh in the 90s and 00s. Personally though, whose life is so great today that they need to escape by watching something depressing? Most people I know (and knew) were generally feeling beat down, afraid for the future, tired of not being able to say what they feel, etc. The HBO content thesis of "just make it more fucked up" is not going to sell as well as it did. I liked GOT because it was fun escapism into a simpler world, with dragons and wars instead of [insert tiresome/pretentious thing about Western society]. (Also because it was written in the 90s.) If they want to recapture their lost market they should try producing more optimistic/escapist programming. Adapt something that people want to watch. I'd pay for it if there was something like GOT. Doubt that it will happen in the current cultural/political climate though.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  I suspect that fiction tends to be opposite of reality. In the 1950s and 1960s, even though the economy was doing great, there was a lot of darkness in the world. There was the cold war, which was terrifying (you kids think it’s bad now?), we still had World War 2, Korea, and even World War 1 veterans around. We were still coming to grips with The Holocaust, and counterculture was just starting up with The Beats (not the Liverpool moptops). We had mass starvation, race riots, and a lot of fear. Fiction, in those days, was pretty fluffy and optimistic. The last couple of decades, before the current one, had seen a lot less of that kind of darkness, and escapism became fairly dark. Dystopian fantasy became en vogue, etc. Things are getting dark again. I suspect fiction may lighten up. We’ll see…

willis936 4y ago

When was HBO not an incredible and influential arthouse? Mr. Show ran from 1995 to 1998 and galvanized the careers and tone of comedians that would carry adult swim and comedy central through their golden eras. Lightning in a bottle is par for HBO.

robbiet480 4y ago

Now if only HBO Max had a world class Apple TV app to match their world class content. Not expecting it to go anywhere but downhill from here what with the coming HBO Max/Discovery+ merger.

remote_phone 4y ago

HBO is the only streaming service I am willing to pay $15/month for. I feel like the quality of their shoes are better than any of the rest especially compared to Netflix. Netflix content is very hit or miss but the last bunch of shows and especially the movies were terrible.

barkerja 4y ago
TV+ is close and seems to be following the HBO model. At at a fraction of the cost (currently). But I agree. HBO is one TV service I don't mind paying annually for.