Hit Man (Part 1)

HBO's lineup is staggering in its depth and variety. Along with The Sopranos, Sex and the City (an antic mix of sex, shoes, restaurants, and relationships), and Six Feet Under (the darkly comic chronicles of a dysfunctional family of undertakers from Oscar-winning screenwriter Alan Ball), other original series include Oz (a brutal, boundary-pushing prison drama), Curb Your Enthusiasm (a viciously funny, inventive comedy from Seinfeld producer Larry David), and the most recent critical hit, HBO's twisted take on a cop show, The Wire.

HBO's original programming is also responsible for such critically adored made-for-television movies as the Emmy-winning Wit (starring Emma Thompson and directed by Mike Nichols) and the virtuoso Path to War, with Michael Gambon as Lyndon B. Johnson, directed by John Frankenheimer. A colossal $120 million, 10-part miniseries, Band of Brothers (based on Stephen Ambrose's book and produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg), premiered on September 9, 2001 and drew a total audience of nearly 59 million people in the weeks following September 11. The documentary group has won a dozen Oscars in the past decade. Part of the secret is in the mix: Event films such as The Laramie Project and the Rudy Giuliani documentary, In Memorium: New York City, 9/11/01, coexist with such gritty, late-night fare as Real Sex and Taxicab Confessions.

It's a virtuoso blend of intelligence, emotion, and invention. And, as it turns out, even in the age of Big Brother 3, producing high-quality television is good business. With a 27 million subscriber base that is growing at a rate of approximately 1 million subscribers a year, HBO dwarfs Showtime, its closest pay-cable rival. HBO has posted an average of 20% earnings growth since 1995 and last year reported profits of $725 million on $2.6 billion in revenue.

Meanwhile, the network's slogan, "It's not TV. It's HBO," has morphed from being the cheeky handle of an upstart pay-cable channel into being a direct challenge to the broadcast networks. Technically speaking, HBO and the networks are not competitors. HBO sells itself to viewers; the networks sell viewers to advertisers. But broadcast networks, pay channels, and basic cable are all clamoring for attention in an increasingly cluttered, competitive, and fragmented entertainment marketplace. In a business where each home run is venerated as a pseudomiracle, HBO's almost uncanny ability to excite the popular imagination, elevate the audience's expectations, and deliver hits represents a radical victory. It changes the game for everyone.

The networks, naturally, have their push back. Some network executives dismiss HBO's success as a by-product of the trinity of vulgarity -- violence, graphic language, and sex -- that separates pay cable from the rest of the TV landscape. Most have circled their calendars to mark Sunday, September 15th at 9 PM: the long-awaited return of The Sopranos for its fourth season and one of the most competitive hours on television. All are scrambling to crack the formula for Soprano-esque hits.

Of course, when it comes to producing hits, Albrecht knows that the best formula is no formula at all. "When it comes to our creative philosophy, the good news is that we don't have any rules," he says. "The bad news is, we don't have any rules." What Albrecht and his team do have is a set of ruling values. Spend time with HBO's decision makers, and you'll hear the same questions over and over: "We just ask ourselves: Is it different? Is it distinctive? Is it good?" says Albrecht.

What's good? "The network guys have an objective criterion for making decisions about shows: Are they paying for themselves?" Albrecht says. "Because of the cable-distribution model, we have no idea whether a particular episode of The Sopranos or a miniseries event brought in more subscriptions. The only thing we have to go on is our own sensibility -- the gut."

That sensibility boils down to one principle, says Albrecht: "Ultimately, is it about something? By 'about something,' I mean not just about the subject, or the arena, or the location, but really about something that is deeply relevant to the human experience. Sopranos isn't about a Mob boss on Prozac. It's about a man searching for the meaning of his life. Six Feet Under isn't about a family of undertakers so much as it's about a group of people who have to deal with their feelings about death in order to get on with their own lives. The next question is, Is it the very best realization of that idea? Is it true to itself?"