No, but I think it's on again tonight, I'll definitely look for it.

SOPRANOS premiere takes in 13.4 million viewers! Hotdamn! That's more than any other event in HBO's 30 year history (according to CNN). The best part is, it is "believed to be the first time an HBO telecast drew a larger audience than any of the broadcast networks at the same time."

Now the networks have a fire under their ass to produce more quality shows.

NEW YORK (AP) -- HBO drew the largest audience in its 30-year history for Sunday night's season premiere of "The Sopranos," a turnout that sent tremors through the television world.

The episode drew an estimated 13.4 million viewers, and was believed to be the first time an HBO telecast drew a larger audience than any of the broadcast networks at the same time.

HBO, as a pay cable service, is available in about one-third of the nation's homes with televisions.


Top 10 shows, their networks and ratings for the week of September 9-15:
1. "NFL Monday Night Football: Pittsburgh at New England," ABC, 12.8
2. "NFL Monday Showcase," ABC, 10.9
3. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation-Monday,"CBS, 9.7
4. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, (tied)" CBS, 9.4
4. "Everybody Loves Raymond, (tied)" NBC, 9.4
6. "9/11, (tied)" CBS, 8.0
6. "Becker, (tied)" CBS, 8.0
9. "Dateline NBC-Tuesday," NBC, 7.8
10. "ABC News-9/11, Part 1, (tied)" ABC, 7.5
10. "Friends, (tied)" NBC, 7.5
10. "Law & Order: Criminal Intent, (tied)" NBC, 7.5
10. "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, (tied)" NBC, 7.5

Source: Nielsen Media Research

"This is higher than I thought we had the potential to reach," said David Baldwin, HBO's executive vice president for program planning. The show appeared to bring in a lot of viewers who might not otherwise have been watching television for the night, he said.

HBO's previous audience peak came for a Mike Tyson heavyweight fight in 1989, the network said.

Network executives were nervous about the 16-month break between new episodes of the mob drama. Instead, the wait only appeared to whet the audience's appetite for the fourth season.

The show's third season premiere was its previous high-water mark in the ratings, with an estimated 11.3 million viewers.

The numbers threatened to overshadow next week's start of the broadcast networks' new fall season. This was the first time HBO began a run of new "The Sopranos" episodes in the fall.

More than the ratings, Baldwin said HBO is eager to see whether the attention will translate into new paying subscribers -- the basis of HBO's business.

The return of "Monday Night Football," which had a little more than 19 million viewers on ABC, was the week's most popular prime-time program.

For the week, CBS averaged 9.6 million viewers (6.6 rating, 11 share), ABC averaged 9 million viewers (6.0, 10), NBC had 7.9 million (5.5, 10), Fox had 7.1 million (4.4, 8), UPN had 3.4 million and the WB had 3.2 million (both 2.1, 4) and Pax TV had 1.5 million (1.1, 2).

NBC's "Nightly News" won the evening news ratings race, averaging 9.2 million viewers (6.7 rating, 14 share). ABC's "World News Tonight" had 8.8 million viewers (6.3, 14) and the "CBS Evening News" had 7.5 million (5.3, 11).

A ratings point represents 1,067,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 106.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

The funny thing is, you hear network people complaining about how they can't compete with the Sopranos, since HBO can have swearing, nudity, and more violence, while the networks can't. To me, that's just a big sign that the networks don't "get" the show; the swearing, nudity, and violence don't make it a great show, the writing and acting do.

Exactly right. It's not like the ideas aren't there (eg. 24, Alias, CSI). But the worst problem is that network TV nowadays is too repetitive; they just try to sequel every show out there.

Law & Order has 3 spinoffs
CSI & CSI : Miami this fall (and don't forget NBC's Crossing Jordan)
Gilmore Girls, Everwood etc. on the teen-angst network (aka WB)
The District, The Agency (otherwise known as bad ripoffs of 24 and Alias)

Come on networks, kick out those network suits and bring in some good writers!

It may seem familiar to some, because that's Johnny Rotten doing a duet with Afrika Bambaataa. Was a minor hit in the 80's.

I might not have looked closely enough at this thread, but I didn't see any discussion about this yet...

Does anyone else think that the undercover FBI agent at the clinic that Jr. and Tony have their meetings at was that doctor, and not the nurse that Jr. liked? It just seems a bit too obvious that it's the nurse (plus, that's who Jr. thinks it is)... but during both clinic scenes, they seemed to make a point of the doctor looking at Tony.

Brian

Tony Soprano made viewers an offer they couldn't refuse. After 16 months of waiting, they tuned into Sunday night's premiere of ''The Sopranos''' fourth season in record numbers. The show drew 13.4 million viewers, the biggest audience for any program in HBO's 30-year history. In fact, it beat all network programming for the night and was the sixth most-watched show of the week, according to Nielsen.

Of course, Nielsen measures cable and network fare separately, so ''The Sopranos'' didn't actually get to mix it up on this week's ratings chart with fare like the Pittsburgh vs. New England game on ABC's ''Monday Night Football'' (the week's top show, with 19.1 million viewers) or two episodes of CBS' ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' (the two shows ahead of ''The Sopranos,'' at Nos. 4 and 5). Which should make the networks happy, since Tony and Co. are already wreaking enough havoc with the nets' Sunday night viewership.

Can ''Sopranos'' rule next Sunday as well? Doubtful, since it'll be up against the Emmys on NBC. At least the networks don't have to worry about competition from the Mafia family there, since the show didn't air any new episodes during the 2001-02 eligibility year. Instead, they'll have to watch out for that other HBO family, the Fishers of ''Six Feet Under,'' whose 23 nods makes it this year's most nominated show.

In the HBOHD schedule, why doesn't the sopranos have a "true hdtv" symbol? Is it just an upconvert?

I don't think so. I read somewhere that they film the show with Hi-Def cameras, but I might be wrong.

Is this the Character Faruza Baulk(sp?) was supposed to play?

From your mouth...

I guess you're at odds with the people in this forum who said that the show couldn't make it in syndication if all of the swearing, nudity and violence were edited out.

Some people seem to like those aspects of the show.

I don't think it could make it if it were in syndication and edited but that's because it was originally written to be shown on HBO. There's really no way to edit it at this point without taking out major parts of the plot and dialog. If the writers had been working within the constraints of network TV (no swearing and nudity, toned down violence) I think it still would have been a great show.

Yes.

If I remember correctly, Chase films all the episodes twice (once without nudity/swearing/explicit violence). He does this exactly for future syndication purposes.

Well, I just saw the first episode during the repeat today at 8 pm central. Im at work on sundays till 10 so I miss out on a lot. In fact, I asked my boss to change my days off to sunday and monday so I could fit the sporanos, the simpsons, family guy, and futurama into my schedule. No such luck...


There were so many classic lines in this episode that I was LMAO some of the time. TV trays, Notredamus, etc...

Speaking of comparisons to network TV, anyone notice the subtle knock on networks when Bobby Bacala's kids were at the house watching TV? Kid runs from the living room to his dad and goes,

"...Dad they don't have cable..."

I loved that.

Yeah, I got a nice chuckle out of that one. It's little moments like that that make this show so damn good.

HBO has done a wonderful job w/ their Sopranos site.

You should get digital cable - you'll get the HBO West Coast feed. Then you can watch it later Sunday night.

According to someone on the AVS website, the Sopranos isn't an upconvert. It is native HDTV. It is filmed in 35mm and then they do an HD film transfer.

I just noticed that also. Tony's sitting there, and this woman walks in, sees him, and then turns around and leaves. Very strange. I don't think it's Dr. Melfi, but it's hard to tell.

I don't think The Sopranos would do well in syndication without the swearing and violence, for the reasons Icculus mentioned (pardon me, I mean the great and knowledgeable Icculus ) It's also up in the air whether you could make a good mafia show without swearing and violence. But for most genres, it's not needed, and so the networks should be able to compete. Six Feet Under is much closer to what you could show on network TV than the Sopranos is, but it's still an incredible show.

On the other hand, it's probably a lot harder to make a compelling show when you have to cut to commercials every 8 minutes, and have such a strict length requirement for the show (ever notice how The Sopranos seems to freely range between 45 and 60 minutes?)