HBO: A story of misogyny and violence

HBO gradually shed its reputation as a fratty boys' club, but the network's origins as a vehicle for male licentiousness haunt the pages of It's Not TV

IT’S NOT TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO 

Author: Felix Gillette and John Koblin 

Publisher: Viking 

Pages: 402 

Price: $28

In the early 1980s, Michael Fuchs, HBO’s pugnacious, Bronx-born future chief executive, made a big bet on male appetites. In his view, broadcast networks like NBC tailored their programming to avoid offending women viewers, whom advertisers relied on to buy household products. Ad-free HBO had no such obligations. “I figured out that the man in the household decided whether or not to have HBO,” Fuchs said. “I made sure there were things for men.”

HBO already had one important “thing for