The New York Times recently cited Norman Mailer’s description of HBO’s The Sopranos as “the closest thing to the Great American Novel in today’s culture.” If that’s the case then, to borrow a bon mot from Balzac (not to mention Woody Allen), there goes another novel.

You’d have to be oobatz not to know by now that cable’s great American series has a contract out on itself, and viewers have only eight more chances to spend Sunday night with mob boss Tony Soprano and his extended (just don’t call them dysfunctional) family.

Judging from the first two installments in this final season, The Sopranos seems to have regained the sure dramatic footing that went missing from previous seas...Read More

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According to Herman Melville, “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” Well, Melville may have been a great writer, but he obviously would never have made it in cable programming.

In fact, when you consider what’s passing for “new” and “original” these days, the phrase “original cable programming” now seems downright oxymoronic. With the networks taking their “if-it-ain’t-broke” philosophy of repackaging tried-and-true formulas to new heights (make that lows), today’s viewers should be more aptly referred to as deja-viewers. And with so many on-air spinoffs, knockoffs and ripoffs, some of those deja-viewers are bound to get a little ticked off eventually.

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No question about it: Video-on-demand continues to be very much in demand heading into 2007.

MAGNA Global Research predicts that 90% of all cable subscribers will be able to get VOD services by 2010. That’s a mere 10% less than the sum total of people who know that Michael Richards has some serious anger-management issues.

But what’s their POV on VOD? According to a Leichtman Research Group report, “On-Demand TV 2006: A Nationwide Study on VOD and DVRs,” consumer reviews are unequivocally equivocal. Less than half (45%) of respondents strongly agreed that VOD has a good variety of programs; 46% somewhat agreed and 9% disagreed. Not so much a rousing hurrah as a deafening hem-haw.

Part of the problem is making sure that there’s enough fresh content being refreshed regularly enough to keep eyeballs from glazing over or, worse,...Read More

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