"The Sopranos" launched on Jan. 10, 1999. "The Shield" bowed on March 2, 2002. "The Closer" opened up shop June 13, 2005.
Cable's rise to original series prominence has gestated in the quieter months, away from the competitive turbulence of broadcasters' fall launch plans.
This fall, however, cablers are engaging broadcasters head-on, launching a number of high-profile originals and bringing back a flurry of franchise skeins.
Cable's incursion into broadcasters' traditional turf starts this week: Sept. 1, TNT bows the Steven Bochco-produced legal drama "Raising the Bar," and Sept. 3, FX will rev up its biker-themed hourlong "Sons of Anarchy" (see reviews of both shows, page 35). Sept. 7 , HBO will debut Alan Ball's vampiric "True Blood."
Meanwhile, FX's landmark series "The Shield" will kick off its seventh and final season Sept. 2, while a number of other returning series -- HBO's "Entourage," USA's "Burn Notice" and Showtime's "Dexter" -- will also start new seasons this month.
"The fact of the matter is that if you're going to grow your original programming on a cable network, you're going to have to dip your toe in those months beyond the summer," says Michael Wright, senior VP of content creation for TNT and TBS. "If you look at the summer months on cable, every year gets more crowded. It's not like it was three years ago, when we launched 'The Closer.' "
"What you're seeing is that every significant basic cable channel is enjoying success (with original series), so you have a very crowded field right now," says John Landgraf, president and g.m. of FX. He says the summer crowding is exacerbated by the "spotty" viewing habits of a vacationing audience.
Indeed, cablers are migrating to the autumn for the same reasons broadcasters established their beachhead there so many years ago.
"The fall is when people come back from their vacations, get into the routines of their lives, and check out what's new on television," says Landgraf, noting that FX had trepidations three years ago when it decided to start season three of its top-rated drama, "Nip/Tuck," in September.
That worked out just fine for FX, with "Nip/Tuck" growing its aud over season two. But this will be the first time FX launches an original during the fall frame.
Starting a few weeks before broadcasters launch their fall skeds in earnest helps.
Meanwhile, Landgraf says the writers' strike makes this fall better than most for cablers to spread their skeds. "There's a heck of a lot less new original programming on the (broadcast) networks this fall than in falls of the past," he notes.
While Wright agrees that the lighter competition helps, he concedes this nice confluence wasn't strategic.
"It just sort of worked out that way," he says, noting the fall plans are part of an original-series ramp-up TNT put in place several years ago.
While Wright believes a legal drama such as "Raising the Bar" will fit in nicely with TNT's slate of police procedurals, he's not expecting the skein to attract audiences the size of the network's summer sked staples "The Closer" and "Saving Grace."
"Viewers and the press know where we live in the summer," Wright says. "Now, the task is getting the audience to say, 'Look at that. Turner is now launching in the fall.' We have to be realistic that the competition is much more fierce."
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