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.
> That’s character in literature: not a stooge in your reverie of fair play and sound politics, but a creature of his time.<p>> Take the best moment in Aaron Sorkin’s imperfect show for HBO, The Newsroom ...<p>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.<p>That's character: not a brilliant hero, but someone unable to read a table correctly.
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.
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 <i>Game of Thrones</i>, <i>The Sopranos</i>, and other top-quality TV; <i>The Last of Us</i> seems to be on its way to adding to the list.<p>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 <i>and</i> brands, yet, though (not even Disney and <i>The Mandalorian</i>).<p>[1] Cf. the rebranding of CBS All Access to Paramount Plus
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.
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.<p>Lightning in a bottle is par for HBO.
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.