Essays on the history of HBO, a company designed to please audiences instead of advertisers, and the impact of its distinctive programming: âRecommended.â âChoice
The founding of Home Box Office in the early 1970sâwhen it debuted by telecasting a Paul Newman movie and an NHL game to 365 households in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvaniaâwas a harbinger of the innovations that would transform television as an industry and a technology in the decades that followed. HBO quickly became synonymous with subscription televisionâand the leading force in cable programming.
Over decades, itâs grown from a domestic movie channel to an international powerhouse with a presence in over seventy countries. It is now a full-service content provider with a distinctive brand of original programming, famed for such landmark shows as The Sopranos and Sex and the City. Itâs brought us Six Feet Under and The Wire, Band of Brothers and Angels in America, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Def Comedy Jam, Inside the NFL and Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, Taxicab Confessions and Autopsy, and multiple Oscar-winning documentaries.
The Essential HBO Reader brings together an accomplished group of scholars to explain how HBOâs programming transformed the world of television and popular culture, and provides a comprehensive and compelling examination of HBOâs development into the prototypical entertainment corporation of the twenty-first century.
âAn important assessment of the original programming HBO has created in the past few decades?how these programs are derived and what impact they have had.â âChoice
âA thorough treatment of HBOâs programming . . . a useful addition to a growing number of books about American television in the âpost-networkâ era.â âAmerican Studies
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