Is HBO Really in 'a Different Business' Than the Networks?

Why can't the networks be more like HBO?

Is it that they can't be? Don't want to be? Or is it something in between?

Does HBO just try harder because it makes people pay to watch, and most networks produce shows advertisers want us to watch? Whatever the reason, HBO has a quality, a luster that sets it apart.

"At HBO, we have a direct relationship with our subscribers. And so what that means is, we're trying to provide you with programming that you choose to buy from us," says Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the company's chairman and chief executive. "That's different in terms of economic motivation from a commercially supported network, because what a commercially supported network ought to do, has to do, is to provide an audience to its advertisers."

The darling of critics, HBO has more Emmy nominations this year overall than any of its cable or network competitors--with its outstanding mob family drama "The Sopranos" the top gun with 22, followed by NBC's White House drama "The West Wing" with 18.

But even if HBO doesn't walk away from Sunday's Emmy Awards with the most statues, the network has distinguished itself in series programming and made-for-TV movies that, in many ways, have set the standard for the rest of the industry. Whether it's Tony and the boys of "The Sopranos," the randy "chick" comedy of "Sex and the City," Larry David's improvised lunacy on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or the black humor and dark family drama of the surprise hit "Six Feet Under," there's no confusing an HBO series with something on another network.

It's much the same in movies, where HBO has four of this year's five Emmy nominations: "Wit," "61*," "For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story" and "Conspiracy."

For years, the channel's choices have been consistently provocative, nonconformist and/or distinctively memorable--far closer to feature films in quality than made-for-TV movies.

HBO built much of its reputation on movies and then with unique series such as "The Larry Sanders Show." Now the network seems to be on an original-series programming roll. And the exclusives have led to a circulation boom: HBO now has some 25.5 million subscribers, a number that has grown about 1 million a year every year since 1995.

Chris Albrecht, HBO's president for original programming, says it boils down to one simple approach: "The only thing that we're interested in is supporting the creative vision that we've agreed on. So we won't buy something if we don't think it works for us, instead of buying something because there's a part of it that we like and trying to change it because we think we know what will work."