• Multichannel News, Tuesday, July 11, 2006 11:30 AM

With “The Sopranos” just about done and “Deadwood” riding into the sunset next year, TV critics are expected to grill Home Box Office executives at a meeting this week about whether it can come up with another groundbreaking hit, reports Multichannel News. But HBO chief Chris Albrecht has heard it all before; “I’ve been answering the 'What’s next?’ question since the end of ‘Sanders’ in 1996,” he says, referring the channel’s breakout “The Larry Sanders Show.” Two years after that, HBO delivered “Sex and the City,” and “The Sopranos” came along 12 months later. This time the network’s programming slate, which includes a new series from “Deadwood‘s”  creator, “may have difficulties matching the brand-defining achievements that four sexually liberated single women and a ruthless mob family provided the premium TV leader,” Multichannel notes. While HBO executives aren’t showing their hand, SyracuseUniversity professor of popular culture Robert Thompson says it’s clear the network needs to place its bets soon. “Right this second, I think they’re still the most exciting place on television... it still has some programming that isn’t going on anywhere else on television,” he says. “I think HBO is still sitting in the catbird seat of that 'It’s not TV ... It’s HBO [slogan].’ But one could predict that if some new things don’t get into the lineup that could serve as a true anchor programming, within five years we could be saying, 'HBO... It’s pretty much TV.’ ”

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