Quality television (or
quality TV) is a term used by
television scholars,
television critics, and broadcasting advocacy groups to describe a
genre or style of
television programming that they argue is of higher quality due to its subject matter, style, or content. For several decades after
World War II, television that was deemed to be "quality television" was mostly associated with government-funded
public television networks; however, with the development of
cable TV network
specialty channels in the 1980s and 1990s, US cable channels such as
HBO made a number of television shows that some television critics argued were "quality television", such as
The Sopranos.