Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda
That's not how HBO works. They gave The Wire 5 season even though the ratings were pitiful, and a purely character driven series in Treme got 4 seasons
Because HBO doesn't use advertising as a source of revenue, they don't care about ratings numbers for any of their series. They're more concerned with how well a show can pull in new subscribers, which something like True Detective can do with 2 big lead stars and a lot of hype around it
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They also care about their "brand". David Simon gets time to do Treme because they want to be in the David Simon business. It also lets them put out garbage like True Blood that pulls in massive ratings because they can still be viewed as a place where storytellers can get their shows made.
The structure of True Detective (one season, one story and then reboot the whole thing with different characters) is important to HBO because if it works, then other big movie stars will come to HBO to do a limited run series and not have to worry about being locked in a 5 year contract.
Billy Bob Thornton just talked about this with respect to Fargo and the president of FX talked about it on a podcast with Andy Greenwald awhile back.