Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from house
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Poke Obama.
Speaker 1: We are ready to conclude the epic series on HBO.
Speaker 1: Our special presentation yet Yeah it's um. We set in
Speaker 1: a in a warm studio and recorded two amazing episodes
Speaker 1: in HBO, and we still have a third one that
Speaker 1: has to be just as amazing at least as the
Speaker 1: first two. It takes a lot of these people, it does,
Speaker 1: it does, But I'm excited this. This is going to
Speaker 1: be the start of the Internet and streaming age, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know with that, as with many things, HBO has
Speaker 1: been a pioneer. So we've got lots of interesting stuff
Speaker 1: to cover. We're picking up in nineteen nine. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that year. So July nine, Time Incorporated acquires
Speaker 1: a fifty nine point three percent steak and a little
Speaker 1: company called Warner Communications Incorporated, creating Time Warner Incorporated, the
Speaker 1: largest media and entertainment company in the world. And the
Speaker 1: following year, Time Incorporate would acquire the remainder of Warner Communications,
Speaker 1: making it a fully integrated company. So now it's even
Speaker 1: larger media giant HBO is still a big player in
Speaker 1: that enormous corporation. In that same year, HBO would launch
Speaker 1: HBOS lesion Is and Espanol, later renamed HBO Espaniol and
Speaker 1: then later renamed HBO Latino. So you may have guessed.
Speaker 1: This is a channel that offered in parallel with HBO
Speaker 1: for certain Spanish speaking markets about twenty initially, and took
Speaker 1: advantage of something called the secondary Audio program or s
Speaker 1: a P to replace the English speaking track with a
Speaker 1: Spanish speaking one, and it was a big success, so
Speaker 1: much so that other markets began to add this to
Speaker 1: their service, and so much so that eventually they would
Speaker 1: start producing their own original content for those markets. Right,
Speaker 1: so instead of just say, taking an HBO original that
Speaker 1: was done in English and redubbing it, they actually made
Speaker 1: their own award winning HBO originals. So you could, if
Speaker 1: you were a Spanish speaking person, watch these and and
Speaker 1: really appreciate that same sort of approach HBO had to
Speaker 1: making entertainment in English speaking countries for Spanish speaking ones. Now,
Speaker 1: this was still in the United States. HBO has not
Speaker 1: branched out into other countries as of yet, so this
Speaker 1: was for Spanish speaking populations within the US, which you know,
Speaker 1: stirred up some cultural issues in certain markets with people
Speaker 1: who might not be as um progressive in some ways.
Speaker 1: Let's to be really diplomatic about it, but at any rate,
Speaker 1: it was a bold move and it paid off. And
Speaker 1: then HBO helped roll out another channel. They were behind
Speaker 1: the development of the Comedy Channel. So their idea was
Speaker 1: to create a special channel specifically catering to comedy. They
Speaker 1: had seen successes in other fields, right, and their and
Speaker 1: their comedy specials were doing so well. Yeah, so they're thinking, wait,
Speaker 1: we know comedy. We know comedy. We we are the
Speaker 1: people who give comedians that that that cache of I've
Speaker 1: got an HBO special, I've made it in the business.
Speaker 1: So so let's let's let's capitalize on that. Let's take
Speaker 1: clips from their specials and for movies and just toss
Speaker 1: them up on the air, and and let's not provide
Speaker 1: context for them, because that would be too complicated. Let's
Speaker 1: just let's just like clip the jokes out of their context,
Speaker 1: and they're going to be just as funny standing on
Speaker 1: their own as they would be within the UH incorporation
Speaker 1: of whatever set up there was around that joke, right.
Speaker 1: You know, actually this sounds a lot like YouTube. This
Speaker 1: was forward thinking, this was ahead of its time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: See that they were trying to follow the model of MTV.
Speaker 1: You know, they wanted to do what MTV did with
Speaker 1: music video as they wanted to do with comedy clips.
Speaker 1: But it failed pretty wildly. Yeah see, it just just
Speaker 1: was one of those things where unless you had that
Speaker 1: extra context, you couldn't truly appreciate the joke for what
Speaker 1: it was. You might find it amusing, but you wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily find it hilarious. Right. Um. Meanwhile, Viacom launched a
Speaker 1: rival channel named HA with an exclamation point to nonetheless,
Speaker 1: which was even worse than than the Comedy Channel. However,
Speaker 1: they merged these two terrible things together to create the
Speaker 1: Comedy Network, which eventually became Comedy Central. As we all know,
Speaker 1: I love right, And so it's interesting to me because
Speaker 1: one of the things that did happen that helped differentiate
Speaker 1: the Comedy Channel from HAW. I didn't put this in
Speaker 1: our notes, but the Comedy Channel was the channel that
Speaker 1: started carrying a certain mystery science theater three thousand uh
Speaker 1: and in fact, I remember that if you've ever read
Speaker 1: any of the MST three K histories. They talk about
Speaker 1: how whenever they told people were on the comedy channel,
Speaker 1: the response was, oh you mean ha oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the other the other college that's called Yeah. So there
Speaker 1: was some confusion in the marketplace until those two finally
Speaker 1: kind of merged into its own unit. But was also
Speaker 1: when a certain HBO original series premiered, one that had
Speaker 1: a lasting impression on my childhood me as well, Tales
Speaker 1: from the Crypt YEP with the crypt Keeper. So this
Speaker 1: was HBO's second attempt at making a horror anthology series. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The first one was The Hitchhiker, which nobody cares about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I watched it that as a kid too.
Speaker 1: I mean I grew up during this era. So I
Speaker 1: watched The Hitchhiker. But Tales from the Crypt was I mean,
Speaker 1: I just I just want to give the crypt Keeper
Speaker 1: a hug. The only thing I have to say about
Speaker 1: Tells from the Crypt is, uh. It really is unfortunate
Speaker 1: that their very best episode was also the first episode.
Speaker 1: It was all downhill after that. The Man Who Was
Speaker 1: Death phenomenal episode about a crazy executioner who really loses
Speaker 1: his marbles when the state he's worked ing in Outlaws
Speaker 1: Capital Punishment. Great episode, great music for that episode. Not
Speaker 1: particularly scary, but really well done. Um and sadly, I
Speaker 1: do not believe any of the subsequent episodes quite lived
Speaker 1: up to it, even the one that had Tim Curry
Speaker 1: starring as like four different characters in the single episode.
Speaker 1: I watched this a lot. Also saw the premiere of
Speaker 1: the series dream On, which was, you know, a comedy
Speaker 1: series following a a a divorced guy who was trying
Speaker 1: to kind of find his place and find love, and
Speaker 1: interesting that the show itself was was pretty amusing. Often
Speaker 1: it had raunchy situations, a lot of gratuitous nudity, both
Speaker 1: in Tales from the Crypt and dream On, partially because
Speaker 1: they could get away with it, Like this is HBO,
Speaker 1: so they're not they're not into the same standards as
Speaker 1: over the air TV, so and especially if the air
Speaker 1: later on at night, they're not going to get that
Speaker 1: many complaints from parent groups, right. So this was one
Speaker 1: of those things where because they were able to do it,
Speaker 1: they were encouraged to do it, even if that wasn't
Speaker 1: in their plan. When they were making next at a
Speaker 1: show pitch that ended up being kind of a directive
Speaker 1: handed down saying, look, guys, throw in some nudity and
Speaker 1: some violence in there, because because why not. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's also part of the point to Tales from the
Speaker 1: Crypt I think from the beginning is that it was
Speaker 1: very much one of those old schlock h B movie
Speaker 1: kind of throwbacks. Well yeah, and very much like The
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone, the sort of idea of the karma coming
Speaker 1: back and haunting you, because it was usually about really
Speaker 1: awful people doing really awful things and then having really
Speaker 1: awful things happened to them as a consequence. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: was not such an awful person and really awful things
Speaker 1: would happen to them, but it was a general general rule,
Speaker 1: whereas with dream On it was like lots of cringe
Speaker 1: humor and and some other stuff. There's some great moments
Speaker 1: and that I remember when David Bowie showed up and
Speaker 1: he was phenomenal on dream On. Yeah. See, I watched
Speaker 1: a lot of HBO when I was a kid. HBO
Speaker 1: rolls out HBO two, which was later named HBO Plus.
Speaker 1: So HBO two is a complementary platform essentially has the
Speaker 1: same sort of stuff that HBO has, but a different
Speaker 1: schedule made possible by this signal compression, which allows you
Speaker 1: to put multiple channels on a single transmission line. This
Speaker 1: was a big deal because cable operators didn't want to
Speaker 1: yield up channels, multiple channels to one provider, all right,
Speaker 1: They only had so much bandwidth to to to provide
Speaker 1: and so therefore if you only, for example, have have
Speaker 1: forty spots to put stuff in, uh, you know, having
Speaker 1: giving one channel two spots is a big deal, right,
Speaker 1: exactly when you could be increasing the variety that you're
Speaker 1: offering your potential customers. Right, sure, and especially at the time,
Speaker 1: I want to mention, everyone did not have like seven channels, right,
Speaker 1: That's what signal compression made possible, because you could actually
Speaker 1: put multiple channels across one transmission line by compressing the
Speaker 1: signal of each one and multiplexing them. So with HBO,
Speaker 1: that meant that they could eventually start creating uh, targeted
Speaker 1: hbos that would be marketed more towards a specific audience.
Speaker 1: So you might have one that has more action movies,
Speaker 1: for example, and one with more comedy content, or one
Speaker 1: with more kid friendly stuff. I mean once again, like
Speaker 1: this gave them the option of doing that without having
Speaker 1: to put in as big an investment as something like
Speaker 1: Festival or Take two was. Back in the other episodes
Speaker 1: you heard us talk about those failed attempts at making
Speaker 1: this kind of approach, but now the technology existed for
Speaker 1: them to do it. Also in HBO finally broke into Europe.
Speaker 1: Not physically, not like you know, illegally, they actually made
Speaker 1: a foothold in Europe in Hungary. They had the Hungarian
Speaker 1: cable system called Cable Calm. That's with Kay's for both
Speaker 1: the cable and the calm, and that was partly backed
Speaker 1: by Time Warner. So this system again did not use
Speaker 1: the satellite system that was common in the United States.
Speaker 1: They didn't worry about getting a geostationary satellite in orbit
Speaker 1: above Hungary. They instead made microwave transmission towers to get
Speaker 1: the signal out to Cable Upper. Returning to that older technology,
Speaker 1: which I mean was was less expensive. Overall, it was
Speaker 1: considered too expensive to to put up a satellite for
Speaker 1: all of Europe when you've got so many languages in
Speaker 1: such a small area to work with, right, it was
Speaker 1: not a practical approach in the case of Europe. I mean,
Speaker 1: if if everyone in Europe spoke the same language, then
Speaker 1: it would be a different story. But with all the
Speaker 1: different languages and cultures, it meant that HBO had very
Speaker 1: different products for each country that it started to get into.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's a story that happens over and over,
Speaker 1: it's repeated over and over in HBO's history, where they
Speaker 1: would tailor make the experience for whatever market they were
Speaker 1: going into. But that meant the microwave transmission approach made
Speaker 1: way more sense than satellite. So they start over there,
Speaker 1: over in Europe, and then they start creeping into some
Speaker 1: other markets, about fifteen more European markets eventually. Meanwhile, that
Speaker 1: year they also launched in Central and South America. YEP.
Speaker 1: Much easier to do, as it turns out, because Central
Speaker 1: and South America, with the exception of Brazil, share a
Speaker 1: common language for the most part, So they had Spanish
Speaker 1: speaking language channels that just broadcast by satellite over South
Speaker 1: America and Central America. How the new channel was called
Speaker 1: HBO ol A. I'm surprised they didn't go with HBoL A. Honestly,
Speaker 1: don't look at me. I'm not the one who named it.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I'm surprised they didn't. They didn't do
Speaker 1: it that way. Um, yeah, it was available in countries
Speaker 1: in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. I I
Speaker 1: don't know how I feel about this HBoL a thing.
Speaker 1: I guess probably other folks aren't upset by it. It
Speaker 1: just seems a little culturally insensible to seem But anyway,
Speaker 1: HBO gets a coup with The Larry Sanders Show starring
Speaker 1: Gary Shandling, and you might say, well, how is that
Speaker 1: a coup? Well, Gary Schandling had really made a big
Speaker 1: success in the eighties and early nineties with another show
Speaker 1: called It's Gary Shandling Show, which was a send up
Speaker 1: of sitcoms that aired on a different station on Showtime,
Speaker 1: so direct competitor to HBO. Yeah, so Gary Schandling gets
Speaker 1: gets uh notoriety through Showtime and the It's Gary Shandling Show,
Speaker 1: which by the way, I thought was hilarious, and then
Speaker 1: moves over to HBO for what you could argue was
Speaker 1: an even better show. The Larry Sanders Show was more
Speaker 1: of a send up of late night television talk shows
Speaker 1: like things like The Tonight Show or uh late night
Speaker 1: type shows, those kind of things, with the character of
Speaker 1: Larry Sanders played by Gary Schandling. As this very vain,
Speaker 1: very petty host and it was supposed to show you
Speaker 1: kind of the backstage stuff that happens on the shows
Speaker 1: where on on camera everyone's really friendly and interested in
Speaker 1: each other, you know, the host has to be engaged
Speaker 1: with the guest, but then when the cameras go off,
Speaker 1: they become nasty, petty, terrible people. Uh, And it was
Speaker 1: a pretty amusing show. This is also the year when
Speaker 1: HBO launched another series called Real Sex, which was a
Speaker 1: magazine format show about sexual matters and had a very frank,
Speaker 1: open minded approach. They it was a little bit documentary
Speaker 1: in style, and um, they covered some pretty like some
Speaker 1: things that could have easily been sensationalized or trivialized or
Speaker 1: or or portrayed in such a way as to say,
Speaker 1: aren't these people unusual? But but for the most part
Speaker 1: it was. It was pretty welcoming of the unusual, which
Speaker 1: was which was really nice. Actually, I mean, and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that it wasn't. I mean, you know, they
Speaker 1: were putting it on the air, I think largely because
Speaker 1: sex exactly some reason why they had so many so
Speaker 1: much gratuitous nudity on dream On, you know. But but
Speaker 1: at the same time, the uh Michael, folks, you know,
Speaker 1: the CEO of HBO said, look, this series is what's
Speaker 1: giving us the money to fund all the documentaries that
Speaker 1: you guys love, and we're trying to deal with this
Speaker 1: frank subject matter in a way that's respectful, which could
Speaker 1: have easily gone a different way. So yeah, Also, uh
Speaker 1: then HBO expands yet again. See now they're entering into
Speaker 1: a new era of expansion where they're getting new customers.
Speaker 1: They're not able to invent new customers in the United States. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, people do that on their own, but they're
Speaker 1: not able to create a new market. So what they
Speaker 1: did was they started to expand in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world. So in the launched HBO Asia, which initially
Speaker 1: service the Philippines and Thailand, but eventually, through multiplexing, the
Speaker 1: service would be available in several Asian languages and spread
Speaker 1: the twenty three nations. I think Mandarin Chinese was probably
Speaker 1: their biggest. Uh bet on that one. I would imagine
Speaker 1: this an enormous population in China. So h Then in
Speaker 1: nine four HBO l A yeah, God, that's cringe worthy.
Speaker 1: They launched a second channel in Center in South America
Speaker 1: UM as well as a Portuguese language channel in Brazil,
Speaker 1: so once again expanding in other markets, and Michael Folks
Speaker 1: gets promoted to overseeing all of Warner Music, and Jeff Bukes,
Speaker 1: who we mentioned in the previous episode, steps up as
Speaker 1: the new head of HBO, and in we get the
Speaker 1: premiere of one of I would say a predecessor to
Speaker 1: the really big breakout hits of HBO original program. It
Speaker 1: was the first hour long drama series produced for HBO,
Speaker 1: and that was Oz Yes, which of course was the
Speaker 1: drama series about a maximum security prison and the shenanigans
Speaker 1: they go on inside. Shenanigans is maybe a shanking, let's
Speaker 1: let's of Uh. Yeah, And i never watched the series myself,
Speaker 1: but but I've heard many colorful things about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was rough. It was a rough series.
Speaker 1: But again, it was one of those things that HBO
Speaker 1: did because one they knew there was going to be
Speaker 1: a market for it, and to no one else could
Speaker 1: really do it. They didn't have the money for it,
Speaker 1: and they couldn't do it on broadcast television, basic cable.
Speaker 1: So uh, that ended up getting some notice, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't a breakaway hit yet. HBO produces a mini series
Speaker 1: called From From the Earth to the Moon, which was
Speaker 1: a big budget mini series. It was produced by Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks and Ron Howard. Tom Hanks did not star in it,
Speaker 1: he was just a producer behind the camera. Mostly starred
Speaker 1: actors who were not recognizable to most the audience, and
Speaker 1: that was on purpose. It was to be able to
Speaker 1: put the focus on the drama of the story and
Speaker 1: to recreate the time of the story without distracting by saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's such and such from so and so. Also to
Speaker 1: lower the costs a little bit, I imagine probably also
Speaker 1: a factor. So this particular model would end up serving
Speaker 1: as an example for future mini series that HBO would deduced,
Speaker 1: including things like Band of Brothers or John Adams. There
Speaker 1: was another one called Generation Kill, which probably is not
Speaker 1: as well known as those two, but other ones as well.
Speaker 1: So this was an approach to producing mini series which
Speaker 1: HBO had not really done. It tried a couple in
Speaker 1: the early eighties, but in general had stayed away from
Speaker 1: mini series and had only been producing open ended series
Speaker 1: where run it season after season until you get tired
Speaker 1: and you stopped doing it. Uh one one of those
Speaker 1: that that happened that began Sex in the City at
Speaker 1: debut that year, and and as we all know, became
Speaker 1: a pretty wildly successful spawned two films. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a big, big hit. Lots of people either loved
Speaker 1: it or hated it, or loved to hate it, love
Speaker 1: to hate it. I never ever watched it. My knowledge
Speaker 1: of sex Sex in the City was based solely upon
Speaker 1: other people's conversations, and just like I was aware of
Speaker 1: it culturally, but I never watched the show. And uh,
Speaker 1: I got the feeling that I probably it. Probably I'm
Speaker 1: not the right audience for that particular. I'm not sure either.
Speaker 1: I a fellow that I dated loved it and and
Speaker 1: maybe watch the entire thing, so I hear past tense,
Speaker 1: delightful fellow, Okay, alright, fair, fair enough, all right. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: Sex in the City, uh, Sex and the City, I
Speaker 1: should say, ends up being one the first of the
Speaker 1: big three uh breakaway hits of HBO originals. We've got
Speaker 1: two more to talk about that that round this out.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. All Right, it's nine, It's
Speaker 1: the year after Sex in the City debuts and gives HBO.
Speaker 1: It's first real incredible popular SHIPBO ends up debuting another
Speaker 1: original series that kind of sets the tone for what
Speaker 1: HBO original programming is all about, at least for several
Speaker 1: series that follow behind. The Sopranos, obviously one of the
Speaker 1: most important series in HBO history, not only that, but
Speaker 1: in cable history, because The Sopranos was critically acclaimed. It
Speaker 1: was not just successful, the critics loved it, and it
Speaker 1: would win Emmy's in two thousand four and two thousand seven.
Speaker 1: It was nominated for Emmy's every single year that it
Speaker 1: was eligible to do so, because remember The Sopranos was
Speaker 1: one of those shows that would go on a hiatus
Speaker 1: for more than a year, but it would garner more
Speaker 1: than it would garner a hundred and eleven nominations over
Speaker 1: the span of its life. So this was a cable
Speaker 1: show winning an Emmy. Now that's a big deal because
Speaker 1: for a while, cable television was looked down on, like
Speaker 1: it was looked at something that was always pretending to
Speaker 1: be as good as broadcast TV. And so the Emmys
Speaker 1: were for broadcast television. That's where the quality programming was.
Speaker 1: And and and furthermore, something that might be a CD or
Speaker 1: or a little bit patronizing. Um but yeah, but with
Speaker 1: with Something is as hard hitting and dramatic and beautiful
Speaker 1: as the Sopranos. It was a hit. Yeah, So we
Speaker 1: started to see cable shows being taken seriously. They no
Speaker 1: longer needed to have their own little UH Awards ceremony.
Speaker 1: The ACE Cable Awards were around back in the day
Speaker 1: where because they weren't really eligible for the Emmys, they
Speaker 1: were only eligible for for ACE Cable nominations. The Sopranos
Speaker 1: definitely knocked that door wide open by consistently being one
Speaker 1: of the most nominated shows while it was on the air.
Speaker 1: So it really did change the entertainment industry. It's yet
Speaker 1: another reason why we talked so much about HBO because again,
Speaker 1: I had this huge effect on how things happened following.
Speaker 1: You know, the stuff that HBO would try, whether it
Speaker 1: was successful or not, it would end up impacting the
Speaker 1: rest of the industry and other industries as well. So
Speaker 1: then in two thousand we get the third of the
Speaker 1: Big Three. We've already got Sex in the City, We've
Speaker 1: already got the Sopranos, So what comes next? Under Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was a show about two brothers who inherit their
Speaker 1: father's funeral service business after their father passes away. And
Speaker 1: it was a weird series. It's one of those series
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to describe to someone who's never seen it,
Speaker 1: because there were episodes where there's stuff that happened that
Speaker 1: was pretty funny, there was stuff that happened that was
Speaker 1: really tragic. There was stuff that happened where you felt
Speaker 1: like there would be no scenery left unchewed. I mean
Speaker 1: it was you couldn't easily range. So it was one
Speaker 1: of those that ended up again being wildly successful. So
Speaker 1: that's why you've got the Big three, and Oz was
Speaker 1: not part of the Big three because even though it
Speaker 1: was fairly popular and fairly well critically acclaimed, it never
Speaker 1: reached that same level of popularity as the other the
Speaker 1: other three. I think it was a little bit less
Speaker 1: palatable to a very large market. Yeah. Yeah, there's another
Speaker 1: big show we'll be talking about briefly that had a
Speaker 1: similar issue that it appealed to one particular market really
Speaker 1: really well and other markets not so well. So two
Speaker 1: thousand two, we have Jeff Bucks getting promoted to president
Speaker 1: and chief operating officer of Time Warner. So now he
Speaker 1: has left HBO and joined the you know that not
Speaker 1: left it, but he's now the head of the parent company.
Speaker 1: And so Chris Albrecht takes Bukes's place as head of HBO,
Speaker 1: and all Breck would end up struggling a bit. He
Speaker 1: was very big on taking chances, and he launched a
Speaker 1: lot of different programs on HBO, but he was really
Speaker 1: trying to aim to to continue this momentum of the
Speaker 1: Big Three, to make another series that was just as
Speaker 1: impactful and compelling as those, and as it turns out,
Speaker 1: that's really hard to do. Sometimes you're just lucky, you know,
Speaker 1: you just strike on the right formula that just happens
Speaker 1: to resonate with the audience. Uh. And so even though
Speaker 1: they produced a lot of different shows, and many of
Speaker 1: them were really good ones, they didn't really hit the
Speaker 1: popularity of the Big Three, and so HBO was kind
Speaker 1: of kind of floundering a little bit, you know, trying
Speaker 1: lots of different stuff and occasionally launching something really ambitious
Speaker 1: and then pulling the plug when realizing that okay, this
Speaker 1: is this isn't that it wasn't making them as much
Speaker 1: money as they thought it would have been. In two
Speaker 1: thousand three, a show like that launched. It was called Carnival,
Speaker 1: which I personally love so much. It's really important. It's
Speaker 1: got the Kurrigan in it, so I mean, you can't
Speaker 1: really go wrong. Oh yeah, yeah, the Kurrigan. As as
Speaker 1: of course his philosophy. We should all remember it's better
Speaker 1: to burn out the feet away. Thank you, thank you
Speaker 1: for that. Uh. And so it had excellent critical reception.
Speaker 1: It It got five Emmy's among fifteen nominations over the
Speaker 1: two seasons that it was on the air, which is
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. Um. But it was also costing the company
Speaker 1: two million dollars per episode, and um yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: first in this whole range of series that HBO would
Speaker 1: start pursuing. Um. But also that year, Time Warner sold
Speaker 1: its stake in Comedy Central to Viacom for one point
Speaker 1: to three billion dollars. So now Time Warner is out
Speaker 1: of the comedy biz as far as Comedy Central is concerned.
Speaker 1: But is still, of course, HBO is still very much
Speaker 1: known for its comedy specials. And then in two thousand
Speaker 1: four we get an amazing comedy Deadwood, a silly little
Speaker 1: show about cowboys. Deadwood was plenty funny. Um yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess if you found, uh, if you found if you
Speaker 1: found the multiple uses of certain incredibly blue phrases to
Speaker 1: be amusing, I did. Yeah. Well, no, I can't blame you.
Speaker 1: I've only ever seen two episodes and they weren't connected
Speaker 1: to each other, but they were both fascinating, and so
Speaker 1: it's It's one of those things where I really wish
Speaker 1: I had been able to watch the whole series and
Speaker 1: just stick around, folks, because I'm about to get excited
Speaker 1: towards the end of this podcast. But yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: it's a Shakespearean Western. The language was very much inspired
Speaker 1: by Shakespeare. Now I'm a Shakespearean scholar, so and I
Speaker 1: love Westerns, so both of these things appealed to me.
Speaker 1: But it's absolutely filthy. Shakespearean Shakespeare's absolutely filthy. Just that's true.
Speaker 1: Where the words don't mean the same thing anymore, that's fair.
Speaker 1: So yeah. Then they also launched in two thousand four Entourage,
Speaker 1: which was a show about making fun of the Hollywood
Speaker 1: lifestyle and trying to break into Hollywood. Uh, and and
Speaker 1: being a hanger on to someone who has met with
Speaker 1: some meager success. Uh. It has fewer foul mouth cowboys
Speaker 1: in it, but Albrett really struggled to get another big
Speaker 1: hit like The Sopranos, and most of the shows that
Speaker 1: he produced were either critically acclaimed but sparsely watched, or
Speaker 1: they were just outright panned. So a couple of the
Speaker 1: ones that didn't do well at all were with titles
Speaker 1: like K Street and Unscripted, and that's two series that
Speaker 1: most people don't talk about anymore. Then there was also
Speaker 1: Louis c Kay's Lucky Louis sitcom, which didn't do very
Speaker 1: well either. Um, of course would pave the way for
Speaker 1: the actual series Louis, which is not on HBO, but
Speaker 1: the this earlier attempt was not a success. Now, Deadwood
Speaker 1: lasted three seasons and then was very quietly killed off
Speaker 1: because HBO didn't want to make a big deal out
Speaker 1: of ending Deadwood. I mean, their their whole like corporate
Speaker 1: identity was that we produced shows that other people cannot
Speaker 1: or will not do. We have that money, we have
Speaker 1: that flexibility, we have the customers who want it, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna do it well. And then they realized, oh,
Speaker 1: we might not actually have that much money. Yeah, Deadwood,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, another very expensive changing the period,
Speaker 1: costume drama with really big actors and yeah, really big actors,
Speaker 1: really really expensive set pieces, and I mean it was
Speaker 1: a very ambitious show that cost a lot of money. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: they also had The Wire, which had an even smaller
Speaker 1: audience than Deadwood did, but the Wire was less expensive
Speaker 1: to produce and was also critically acclaimed. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It was still very much critically aclaimed. So if you've
Speaker 1: got two series and you've got one that's really expensive
Speaker 1: and it's critically acclaimed, but only seems to be attracting
Speaker 1: mostly a male audience because men tend to like Westerns
Speaker 1: and women tend not to. Those are just general trends,
Speaker 1: obviously not descriptive of everyone everywhere. So don't write me
Speaker 1: and tell me how you are a woman who loves
Speaker 1: Westerns and then I'm wrong. I actually wonder how the
Speaker 1: numbers on dead would chook out. Now I need to
Speaker 1: research this well. At any rate, they weren't good enough HBO,
Speaker 1: so they wanted to very quietly kind of back off.
Speaker 1: And they had originally said that they were thinking about
Speaker 1: doing four seasons, they actually only did three. Um, they
Speaker 1: said that they were going to do two movies to
Speaker 1: follow up and tie up all the loose ends which
Speaker 1: had never never have happened. They haven't surfaced, So pretty
Speaker 1: sure that that ship has sailed to mix some cowboy
Speaker 1: pirate metaphors. But but the Wire they kept going because
Speaker 1: it was critically claimed and cheap. Yeah, so this way
Speaker 1: they got the benefit of having a critically acclaimed television
Speaker 1: show on their network, but it wasn't a huge financial
Speaker 1: loss to the company. It was and to be fair,
Speaker 1: involved fewer contrasting plaids, which I know not everybody appreciates
Speaker 1: to the level that I do. You obviously haven't watched
Speaker 1: The Wire season two. Contrasting Plaids was the subtitle of
Speaker 1: that season. I just made all that up. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so so that's you know, they wanted to have the
Speaker 1: benefit of having this kind of critically acclaimed programming on
Speaker 1: their channel, but obviously not have the albatross of an
Speaker 1: incredibly expensive production around the corporate neck. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: why in two thousand five they started realm Okay, so
Speaker 1: clearly they did not. Maybe they learned from the mistakes
Speaker 1: and that's how they were able to repeat them almost exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that they learned to those I think that
Speaker 1: they made those mistakes after Rome had already premiered that
Speaker 1: they were still and that excited, let's do everything we
Speaker 1: want to do phase with Rome um. But it was
Speaker 1: also very expensive, hard to get viewers into it. They did,
Speaker 1: they canceled it after two seasons. Now. Of course, originally
Speaker 1: they had talked about just being a mini series where
Speaker 1: it would have only have been uh something like twelve episodes,
Speaker 1: but then they said that there it would come back
Speaker 1: for a second season, and sometime in that second season
Speaker 1: they're like, whoops, okay, let's just let this quietly die too,
Speaker 1: And there's only so many times you can watch someone
Speaker 1: fall out of a toga. I guess. Yeah. By the way,
Speaker 1: still in that era of hey, we can get away
Speaker 1: with it because we're on We're a paid television station,
Speaker 1: so let's create content, there's lots of gratuitous violence and
Speaker 1: or nudity. Rome had plenty of both two thousand seven.
Speaker 1: In November of two thousand seven, a major event happened
Speaker 1: that affected all all television channels everywhere because at least
Speaker 1: in the United States, well, all television channels that were
Speaker 1: producing original content. Yeah, because that's when the Writer's Guild
Speaker 1: of America had a strike. Now, Yeah, animation was fine
Speaker 1: because they weren't in the writer's guild. I knew a
Speaker 1: lot of animators who were grumbling about this. But the
Speaker 1: Writer's Guild of America had a strike, and so HBO
Speaker 1: had banked a lot of stuff that helped them kind
Speaker 1: of coast through the writer's strike without too much trouble.
Speaker 1: They had the mini series John Adams that helped them
Speaker 1: get through it. They had another season of The Wire
Speaker 1: that helped them get through it. But HBO did not
Speaker 1: get through two thousand seven without some major trouble. For example,
Speaker 1: Chris Albrecht, the of HBO, was arrested following a physical altercation.
Speaker 1: It was actually he was arrested because he uh physically
Speaker 1: threatened his girlfriend at the time. Yeah, that's not good.
Speaker 1: And apparently it wasn't his first offense either. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: time Warner called for his resignation. Actually, I read the
Speaker 1: letter he wrote. Albrecht wrote where he was very frank
Speaker 1: and admitted guilt and said, I thought I had put
Speaker 1: these problems behind me. I was. I was an alcoholic.
Speaker 1: I went to Alcoholics Anonymous two years ago. I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, I can handle drinking alcohol, and clearly I
Speaker 1: was wrong, So he was very much admitting his fault
Speaker 1: in it. Uh so at least there's that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still a terrible, terrible thing. But um, he didn't
Speaker 1: deny it, so I guess that's something. So Time Warner
Speaker 1: now is saying, all right, well, what are we gonna
Speaker 1: do with HBO? Who's gonna lead it? There was not
Speaker 1: a specific person that they could point to and say,
Speaker 1: this is the person upon whose show, whose shoulders HBO
Speaker 1: should rest, So they ended up picking three people to
Speaker 1: kind of divide up the the entire job of ruling
Speaker 1: this kingdom, all of whom had been working for HBO
Speaker 1: since the nineties. Yep, you had Bill Nelson who became
Speaker 1: the CEO of HBO, Eric Kessler became one of the
Speaker 1: co presidents, and the other was Richard Plepler. And yeah,
Speaker 1: they all had experience. Richard Plepler did not have any
Speaker 1: experience in programming going into it, but would turn out
Speaker 1: to have some very keen ideas on where to go.
Speaker 1: Because remember this is still when HBO is trying to
Speaker 1: recapture the glory of the Big Three and try and
Speaker 1: find another another original series that they can they can
Speaker 1: really be proud of and they can, that can carry
Speaker 1: the company. So around the same time, in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: little upstart company called Netflix, which had been in business
Speaker 1: for a few years, announced that it was going to
Speaker 1: create a streaming service, an online streaming service. All right.
Speaker 1: They had already been offering DVDs via mail, but at
Speaker 1: this point they started offering streaming. Yep. So, uh, this
Speaker 1: becomes another competitor to HBO because HBO now they still
Speaker 1: have as part of their business this idea of uncensored,
Speaker 1: uncut movies that you can watch, but with Netflix streaming,
Speaker 1: at least watch them whenever you want. Yeah, assuming assuming
Speaker 1: that the title is in their library, which we all
Speaker 1: know is a huge assumption. And and and furthermore, they
Speaker 1: obviously at that time, we're not making their own original content.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Netflix was pretty much beholden to whatever uh
Speaker 1: studios were producing content at that time. But yeah, this
Speaker 1: was another another competitor, and it was outside the cable industry.
Speaker 1: Everyone got a little nervous at this point, including HBO.
Speaker 1: Oh sure sure. Speaking of that original content, however, in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, HBO debuted True Blood um, which was
Speaker 1: really its first, its first big hit since those Big Three. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this one was a huge hit. It was extremely popular.
Speaker 1: You can debate upon whether or not it merits that
Speaker 1: I know there are such debates. I never watched the series,
Speaker 1: so I can't comment one way that it's terrible. I
Speaker 1: love it. Yeah, okay, I mean terrible things have their
Speaker 1: place in this world. Uh. Then other shows such as Boardwalk, Empire,
Speaker 1: The news Room, and Veep followed. So these were shows
Speaker 1: that didn't necessarily have the same following as the Big three,
Speaker 1: but again, we're critically acclaimed, seemed to be popular among
Speaker 1: the audiences that really love these shows. Um. And then
Speaker 1: you started seeing a couple of major breakthrough hits that
Speaker 1: that followed. So yeah, yeah it stuff like Girls and
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones. Do I can't do anymore because they'll
Speaker 1: they'll take us down. Uh yeah No, Game of Thrones,
Speaker 1: big big hit obviously for HBO. Um. I don't have HBO.
Speaker 1: By the way, this is where I mentioned I don't
Speaker 1: own HBO. But I read all the books, so you
Speaker 1: can't spoil me, su Yeah, you can tell me about
Speaker 1: stuff that happened in the show but didn't happen the books.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, I don't care because I read
Speaker 1: the books. So to me, that's the story. So bring it,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying, unless your name is George R. R R. Martin,
Speaker 1: in which case, do not bring it, sir. I will
Speaker 1: be happy to read it when you publish it, and
Speaker 1: take your time. Take your time, sir, as long as
Speaker 1: you need. Yeah. No, no, no no. As as Neil
Speaker 1: Gaiman once said, George R. Martin is not your bitch. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: And then Paul and Storm sang a song, and then
Speaker 1: George R. Martin came out and broke their their guitars.
Speaker 1: It's a great, great moment on YouTube. Look it up.
Speaker 1: For for the record, I've also read the books. You
Speaker 1: cannot spoil me either. Yes, that's a challenge unless you're
Speaker 1: George R. Martin. Yeah, I don't. I don't want him
Speaker 1: writing in and say guess which Stark dies next. I
Speaker 1: totally want him to do that. Actually, come on, it
Speaker 1: would be the best. Well, then we can hold it
Speaker 1: over everyone else's George R. Martin, if you're listening, please
Speaker 1: write it's spoil me, spoil Lauren. We'd have to give
Speaker 1: him just your email address and the one that I
Speaker 1: give out of the end, it goes to both of us.
Speaker 1: Lauren this is this is irresponsible of you. All right,
Speaker 1: just send her a direct tweet. Okay. So in two,
Speaker 1: HBO launches HBO Go, which is its online streaming service
Speaker 1: for HBO subscribers, which allow HBO customers to watch content
Speaker 1: on demand for the is time, only three years after
Speaker 1: Netflix had already been doing the same thing. And of
Speaker 1: course it's limited to just people who will Theoretically, it's
Speaker 1: limited to just people who have an HBO subscription. So
Speaker 1: if you do not subscribe to cable and subscribe to HBO,
Speaker 1: you cannot access HBO Go legally. I say legally because
Speaker 1: it is my understanding and again I do not do.
Speaker 1: This is my understanding that some people occasionally will lend
Speaker 1: out their log ins to friends or family who do
Speaker 1: not have HBO so that they can watch things. In fact,
Speaker 1: that'll tie into, uh, something we're gonna talk about in
Speaker 1: just a moment. Now, we're we're finally up to current day.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. We don't have to take the
Speaker 1: way back machine back to present day because we are
Speaker 1: in present day now. So the way back machine took Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: granted we have been traveling through time for three episodes
Speaker 1: and it's gotten a little warm in this room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's the problem with being in this way back machine.
Speaker 1: It's like a quarter of the size of our studio.
Speaker 1: So it's been a little, been a little let's just
Speaker 1: go ahead and step out right now. Okay, that's better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's way better. All right, So we're in present day now.
Speaker 1: First of all, Uh, Game of Thrones, that that series
Speaker 1: we mentioned just a couple of points ago before we
Speaker 1: got off on our George R. Martin, please spoil us brand. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's turned out to be the most pirated show in
Speaker 1: the world. Almost more people illegally downloaded the Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones premiere for season four than the next closest rival,
Speaker 1: which was The Walking Dead, So almost more people, and
Speaker 1: that shows that the show is incredibly popular, and in fact,
Speaker 1: in April fourteen, Game of Thrones broke the record for
Speaker 1: most pirated episode within the first twenty four hours of
Speaker 1: going live, with one point one seven million unique IP
Speaker 1: addresses torrenting the premiere of season four. So that doesn't
Speaker 1: count all the people who used uh someone else's HBO
Speaker 1: go profile. Okay, but but but I but I want
Speaker 1: to say here it's drawing some seventeen million legit viewers
Speaker 1: per episode. Well legit or legit ish um, you know,
Speaker 1: you know again, not not counting people who are stealing
Speaker 1: that password. Um. But the thing is is that HBO
Speaker 1: officially does not care about that thing. CEO Richard Pepler
Speaker 1: has said, uh, and I quote it's a terrific marketing
Speaker 1: vehicle for the next generation of viewers, and also quote,
Speaker 1: we're in the business of creating addicts. They've actually noticed
Speaker 1: that people have subscribe to HBO after pirating stuff because
Speaker 1: they wanted to have access to this and I didn't
Speaker 1: want the problems of either using someone else's HBO Go pass,
Speaker 1: which might crash, because that's happened a couple of times.
Speaker 1: It happened on the premiere of season four. Too many
Speaker 1: people were trying to access the HBO Go network and
Speaker 1: as a result, it crashed under the demand, which caused
Speaker 1: a lot of people to complain. I maintained that the
Speaker 1: complaining we're borrowing someone else's HBO Go pass. I think
Speaker 1: that's probably an accurate I haven't done any research on this.
Speaker 1: This is based upon the people I saw on Twitter complaining.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you don't subscribe to HBO, you're using someone
Speaker 1: else's pass. And you're complaining that doesn't work entitled much anyway,
Speaker 1: in the business of creating addicts, it's working. It's work.
Speaker 1: Apparently it works really well. So, yeah, it seems like
Speaker 1: it's going pretty well. Uh see, I guess I see
Speaker 1: some figures here you've got in this in this notes here, Lauren. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're doing pretty okay. They're they're operating at a
Speaker 1: thirty six percent profit margin of the some one point
Speaker 1: three billion dollars they rake in every year. UM. They
Speaker 1: currently have some a hundred and thirty million subscribers worldwide,
Speaker 1: and n HBO that their subscription base is growing faster
Speaker 1: than it has in the past seventeen years. To be fair,
Speaker 1: Netflix is growing even faster still and has surpassed HBO
Speaker 1: in the number of subscribers. It did so back in
Speaker 1: Q three. UM. But Netflix is operating costs are a
Speaker 1: whole lot higher, being that it's still busy building its
Speaker 1: original content and investing in all of those new markets.
Speaker 1: And HBO recently made a partnership with a direct competitor
Speaker 1: to Netflix that could really shake things up. We're talking
Speaker 1: about Amazon Prime. Yeah, yeah, they they announced a deal
Speaker 1: where Amazon is going to get to stream a bunch
Speaker 1: of HBO's original content, um, not all of it. I
Speaker 1: think that Game Thrones in Sex and the City were
Speaker 1: both left out of the deal. Game of Thrones specifically,
Speaker 1: not surprising anyone has left out of the deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but a lot of their older content, in particular things
Speaker 1: like The Sopranos and say Deadwood, will be allowed to
Speaker 1: stream on Amazon Prime. So that has me really excited
Speaker 1: because now I'll finally get to watch both those shows.
Speaker 1: I am not seen them so to me. I mean, granted,
Speaker 1: I know a lot about what happens in them, it's
Speaker 1: just culturally you do. Oh sure, sure, but but that's
Speaker 1: not that's not really the point. Now. The performances and
Speaker 1: the exit cution uh and literal senses in both in
Speaker 1: both those shows are what will be really interesting to
Speaker 1: me because I've always heard so much about them. Now
Speaker 1: I hope that I'm able to go in with with
Speaker 1: managed expectations and not just you know, super hyped, because
Speaker 1: obviously very few things live up to a super hyped expectations.
Speaker 1: But I'm looking forward to seeing them. Honestly, Deadwood lived
Speaker 1: up to the hype for me. I'm I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to seeing it from the beginning, because like I said,
Speaker 1: I only saw two episodes completely out of context, and
Speaker 1: that was that was troubling under age listeners. These these
Speaker 1: shows are for mature audiences only or immature. Does that
Speaker 1: let me out immature mature audiences? Uh yeah so uh so,
Speaker 1: so don't go, don't don't go running out and watching
Speaker 1: this and parents and ptition that that would be, you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't be like Jonathan was watching Tales from the
Speaker 1: Crypt when he was a little kid. Clearly no damage
Speaker 1: was done to either of us. We turned out completely normal. Um.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, now, this this entire Amazon deal,
Speaker 1: especially with Amazon expanding its empire to include that new
Speaker 1: fire TV gig, that that ninety nine dollar Internet TV
Speaker 1: device streaming thing, um, could potentially mean a bit of
Speaker 1: a crunch for Netflix. Yeah yeah, I mean this is
Speaker 1: this is the next era, right, So I'm sure Netflix's
Speaker 1: response will be to go and invest even more in
Speaker 1: original programming, because again, you have to differentiate yourself. Um.
Speaker 1: They you know, they've had some very famous issues with
Speaker 1: keeping films in their libraries and licensing licenses expiring. People
Speaker 1: get upset about that. The funny thing is that's the
Speaker 1: way it's worked ever since this whole pay TV model
Speaker 1: even started. I mean HBO had the same issues where
Speaker 1: they would have a movie under license and then the
Speaker 1: license expires and they don't have access to that film anymore.
Speaker 1: That's why you're not going to see Star Wars all
Speaker 1: the time. It's only whenever the license comes up and
Speaker 1: they're allowed to show them. Also, as we said in
Speaker 1: our streaming content episodes, Netflix's game plan right now is
Speaker 1: too and and I think this was the quote, become
Speaker 1: HBO before HBO can become us. Yeah, so the race
Speaker 1: is on. Both both of them are are racing all
Speaker 1: the gates and uh, we don't know. Maybe they'll maybe
Speaker 1: they'll be a photo finish. Maybe we'll have two amazing
Speaker 1: content providers that we all enjoy. Maybe one will come
Speaker 1: out on top. We'll have to wait and see. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been great getting a chance to talk about HBO.
Speaker 1: And we know that we really went super in depth
Speaker 1: with this one, and that's not normally what we do
Speaker 1: with our episodes, but in this case, because it had
Speaker 1: such an impact on the way cable television works today
Speaker 1: and the reason we even have cable in our our cities,
Speaker 1: we felt that it merited this kind of discussion. So, guys,
Speaker 1: if you have any any topics you want us to cover,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, crazy in depth version, or you
Speaker 1: just hey, there's this these eight things that none of
Speaker 1: them would probably make a full episode, but I want
Speaker 1: to know about all eight. Could you answer these questions?
Speaker 1: Send us your questions, send us your suggestions. Let's know
Speaker 1: on email, we got an email address. It's text stuff
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. We get a lot of people
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