We Want Media

Maybe you’ve seen the ads around the city. The Love. The Ambition. The Power. But since A&E has started showing syndicated episodes of HBO’s The Sopranos, it’s more about The Youth.

A recent article in USA Today said that the A&E premiere of The Sopranos on Jan. 10 of this year brought in 4.3 million viewers, a record for the channel.

While the individual episodes are of course edited for violence, sex, profanity, and all of the other things we love about the show, it seems as if A&E is succeeding in bringing in a younger audience.

Before The Sopranos premiered on A&E, the only other time I think I ever tuned in to the channel was to watch a few select episodes of Growing Up Gotti. Sex and the City also found success in reruns on TBS and then the CW11 in New York where it plays every night at 11PM.

But I definitely think that there is something missing when HBO series are shown on “regular” television. Aside from the necessary editing, some scenes that don’t even need to be cut for violence, sex, etc. are to allow for commercials. While it’s nice to have easier access to these shows on cable channels, I prefer watching it on HBO, or even better, on DVD.