Syndicating 'The Sopranos' to help TV

The three questions that zipped through my mind when I heard that A&E -- the basic cable channel most widely known for its somniferous series "Biography" -- had acquired HBO's hit mob drama "The Sopranos," were:\n1) When will it start?\n2) How much did they pay?\nAnd 3) Is it going to be shown unedited?\nAccording to a Feb. 1 article in The New York Times, the answer to my first question is fall 2006, around the time I'll be struggling to make on my own cable bill payments. \nQuestion two's answer is somewhere in the vicinity of "a lot." The Times reports A&E will pay roughly $2.5 million per episode, translating to more than $162.5 million for the 65 episodes that make up the first five seasons, purportedly the highest amount ever paid to bring a drama into syndication. (A&E will pony up at least $25 million more for the 10 episodes that HBO will make for the show's sixth and final season.)\nAs for my third question, as I wondered if the show -- continually hailed by critics as one of the best shows on television, as well as receiving 89 Emmys nominations and 17 wins over five years -- would be presented in its original format, I dug deep into the many possible puns I could use. I settled on "fahgeddaboutit." \nI'm reminded here of a surprisingly funny "MadTV" sketch that presents what might happen if "The Sopranos" played on the cable channel PAX. Cut from one hour to 2 minutes, Tony Soprano threatens a man in one scene, and after an abrupt cut, the man's body is being drug out of the room with blood all over Tony's shirt and face. Another sketch from "Mr. Show" had a send-up of an edited version of "GoodFellas" that involved the line, "Screw you, you mother-father!"\nIt's still too early to tell exactly how A&E will present "The Sopranos." As a cable network, it is not subject to the same federal decency requirements imposed on broadcast networks in prime time. Conceivably the network could show all the sex, drugs and violence it wants. \nBut will it? Unlike commercial-free HBO, A&E is a network dependent on advertising. Instead of intense government regulation, it's regulated by the power of the dollar, which dictates the channel to clean up the series for air if advertisers are too afraid to buy time during the show.\nThat might just be what TV needs.\nI groaned when TBS bought the syndication rights for HBO's "Sex and the City." As someone who took advantage of a crisscrossed wire that gave my home free HBO throughout high school, I couldn't imagine how TBS could make that show work. But, despite evident dubbing and manic editing, it really isn't that bad -- and more importantly, the show has become more accessible. (HBO airs in about 30 million homes, about one third of the homes reached by cable.)\nSyndication is typically a blessing for television. I won't deny how much I love being able to catch "Seinfeld" or "The Simpsons" two or three times a day. Bravo has "The West Wing," USA has "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," and other popular dramas such as Fox's "24" may soon be finding their way toward cable. Nick at Nite has turned into the equivalent of television preservation, and any classic show can be accessed like a book in a library or a dead lizard in a jar of formaldehyde. \nBut, like all things in entertainment, syndication is a money-driven business. I inevitably cringed when I read in The Times article that HBO stipulated actors on "The Sopranos" and "Sex in the City" record alternative dialogue in which some of the crudest parts are toned down, with their eyes possibly on expanding the show's horizon in the future to a more sensitive audience. \nYet it illustrates that networks are thinking ahead, which means the channels that salivate to buy the syndication rights to unedited programming must start thinking ahead as well. \nIt's appealing across the board to teleplay shows the way they were meant to be seen. One suggestion has been made that networks that buy reruns play them at 10 p.m. or later, which has become, as The Times called it, "the watershed hour for contentious content on basic cable," citing darker television series like "Nip/Tuck," "Rescue Me" and "The Shield."\nIt's unrealistic to believe A&E will show the series unedited -- at least in prime time. But it's not too much to ask that the network try to preserve the quality and character of the show as it is exposed to a greater audience by placing it in a later timeslot. This is the fairest tradeoff: A&E gets the show, more people get to watch the show, HBO gets the huge check for the show and can continue making quality programming and a good example is set for cable networks in the future that purchase syndication rights.\nPeople who have never seen the series want to know what "The Sopranos" is made of; the best way to do that is allowing the curious to stay up a bit later and catch what the buzz is about.