By Billy Finnegan, Contributing Writer
Imagine this: a group of bright young Hofstra freshman anxiously and excitedly waiting for their first time at college to begin. All of them are afraid, anxious, unsure of what to expect, so these bright young Hofstra freshman decide to attend Orientation, to help alleviate their concerns. This session does wonders for them—they feel ready for college, they have an idea what to expect, and they now know what TV channels Hofstra gets. They are told Hofstra gets HBO, so watching True Blood will never be a problem. They’re all set for college and life seems perfect.
Except that’s not what happened, because the University changed everything and now Hofstra gets Showtime instead. Simply put, this travesty against justice is just not okay. Let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we? HBO is infinitely better than Showtime, no questions asked. True Blood alone makes HBO a better network than Showtime, but there are other things that make this affront to the Hofstra student body unacceptable. The elements that make HBO the superior network are vast and apparent.
Take the two networks’ respective movie libraries, for example. HBO has exclusive first-run movie deals with Warner Brother’s Entertainment (along with New Line Cinema), Twentieth Century Fox, and Universal Studios to air their most recent films. The rights to their older films, along with Walt Disney Motion Picture Group, Sony Pictures, and pre-1997 Paramount are shared with Starz and Encore. For first-run movies, Showtime primarily has smaller studios and independent films. Though smaller studios and independent films can be just as good as a major production, they have significantly less popular appeal, and a smaller portion of the student body will enjoy their movie channel.
Showtime also has the rights to Summit Entertainment, which is responsible for the Twilight films, but as a rule, anyone who wants to watch Twilight has it on DVD. It’s very much a love it or hate it franchise.
Next, let’s look at the shows the two channels broadcast. We’ll start with numbers. At this point in time, HBO airs 26 original programs, 17 of them are dramas and/or comedies. Showtime airs 19 original programs, and only seven of them are dramas and/or comedies, not die-hard sport shows or esoteric, limited-appeal documentaries.
Now to quality: who honestly watches more than Dexter and Weeds on Showtime? Though both Dexter and Weeds are good, Showtime’s other programming is lacking. HBO, conversely, has True Blood, Entourage, Big Love, and Hung. Even its past programming is better: Rome, Sex and the City, and, of course, The Sopranos, to name just a few. Showtime had The Tudors, which stopped being interesting after Anne Boleyn’s death (which is English history’s fault, not Showtime’s, but still).
In upcoming shows, HBO has A Game of Thrones (described as “The Sopranos in Middle Earth”), Boardwalk Empire (about Prohibition, and therefore, booze), The Miraculous Year (starring Broadway actress Patti LuPone), and ten other shows. Showtime is coming up with a total of three: The Borgias, which is nothing more than The Tudors, Take 2; Shameless, a remake of a British hit; and Episodes, which is about converting a British show to an American one. Makes you wonder where they got that idea, doesn’t it? There’s much more potential in HBO’s new lineup.
Switching from HBO to Showtime was nothing more than a mistake on the University’s part. A mistake must be fixed. HBO offers so much more, and since most of us are paying $40,000 a year to go to college, robbing us of HBO is robbing us of cash, and it’s just plain wrong.