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It's nice that HBO is in business with the audience and not with the advertisers. There's a difference.

But HBO is less interested in how many people are watching than in how much the people who are watching are liking the show. They didn't set up their business model to make writers happy. It's just a nice unintended consequence.

I'm on record saying that HBO is the best television company in the world, and I believe they are. I think they absolutely understand how to make television that is really, really vital and interesting and visceral, and all the things that television really should be.

What's so valuable about HBO is they tell stories. We learn from stories.

HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that reputation is earned.

I just love shows that don't hand everything to you, that ask you to be smarter. I think that's something really important that HBO has done to change the landscape of TV.

The fact is that HBO is doing the kind of films and the kind of stories that the movie industry used to do. You look at a lot of the specialty sections of studios that have gone under... and there's no doubt in my mind why filmmakers and screenwriters and actors are ending up at a place like HBO. They do it better than anybody.

What's great about HBO is they just care about quality. They care about the brand. They're not worried about ratings; obviously they want people to buy subscriptions, but they just want people to be into what's on HBO.

I think what's great is that, when HBO commit, they go in all guns blazing. They attract the very best set designers, the whole thing.

HBO is not an advertiser-based model, it's a subscription model. So what's significant to HBO is not necessarily the debut of an episode, it's the cumulative numbers.