eBook

English

9780813143729

9780813143729

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"Essays on the history of HBO, a company designed to please audiences instead of advertisers, and the impact of its distinctive programming: "Recommended." -- Choice The founding of Home Box Office in the early 1970s -- when it debuted by telecasting a Paul Newman movie and an NHL game to 365 households in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania -- was 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 television -- and the leading force in cable programming. Over decades, it's 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. It's 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 HBO's programming transformed the world of television and popular culture, and provides a comprehensive and compelling examination of HBO's development into the prototypical entertainment corporation of the twenty-first century. "An 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." -- Choice "A thorough treatment of HBO's programming... a useful addition to a growing number of books about American television in the 'post-network' era." -- American Studies"--,Provided by Freading.