The Family Racket: AOL Time Warner, HBO, The Sopranos, and the Construction of a Quality Brand

This paper examines HBO's The Sopranos in the context of several industrial factors. I begin with the series'generic inscription. As a gangster program, The Sopranos comes to us in the form of a pedigreed pre-sold product, a television text of esteemed cinematic lineage. This leads to the examination of branding. In order to corral The Sopranos into the slogan, “It's Not TV, It's HBO,” HBO seeks to differentiate its product from lowest common denominator, broadcast fare. The separation results in the construction of the “quality” brand, a problematic concept academics have linked to demographics. HBO's branding strategy has also intensified the claim of competition between pay cable and broadcast television in popular discourse. This claim is problematized by the ratings gathering methodology of A.C. Nielsen and by AOL Time Warner's tiering strategies. By examining the aforementioned strategies, I uncover the materialist— rather than auteurist—foundations of The Sopranos.