Two years ago the cultural essayist Kurt Andersen argued that HBO had become what PBS should be: a safe haven for creativity in American television, where quality and daring, not ratings, determine a show’s fate. At the moment, however, the premium-cable powerhouse is suffering through a rare stretch of the blues. In early May, with the channel already bracing for the June 10 departure of “The Sopranos,” another gut punch came out of nowhere: Chris Albrecht, HBO’s beloved, Midas-like CEO, was forced to resign after an alleged booze-fueled physical altercation with his girlfriend in Las Vegas. The network plans to name a replacement for Albrecht in the next few weeks, and that person will likely come from within HBO, but the impact could be seismic. “Two years from now, maybe we’ll say, ‘Boy, that was a smooth transition’,” says Bill Carroll, vice president of Katz Media Group, a TV ad-buying company. “Or maybe we’ll say, ‘That was the moment it all started to slip away’.”

Even before Albrecht left, rival cable networks were feeling frisky about life in a post-“Sopranos” universe. “I think HBO is darn good at what they do, but I don’t think they’re No. 1 anymore,” says FX president John Landgraf, who then rattles off his own roster of dramas: “The Shield,” “Nip/Tuck,” “Rescue Me,” recent hit “The Riches,” plus a new legal drama with Glenn Close called “Damages.” “Frankly, I’d leave anyone to come to their own conclusions about how we stack up against them.” Once “The Sopranos” departs, HBO’s most senior drama will be “The Wire,” and it will go off the air in early 2008. “I think it’s reasonable to call this a rebuilding phase,” says Robert Greenblatt, president of Showtime, which has emerged from HBO’s shadow with buzzworthy shows like “Weeds” and “Dexter,” and should have another hit this summer with “Californication,” a comedy starring David Duchovny. “When your three biggest hits have exited in the last three years—and the audience is more fragmented, and there’s more original programming out there—I think that’s significant. I think that means you’re rebuilding.”

HBO still has a solid foundation, though, with “Big Love,” “Entourage” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in its lineup. As for doing without “The Sopranos,” so what else is new? The show routinely disappeared for 18-month stretches throughout its run. Even HBO’s rivals concede that the pressure to replace “The Sopranos” is more fantasy than reality. Subscription channels like HBO and Showtime “can flourish with things that don’t get big numbers. That’s just hard for people to digest,” says Greenblatt. “HBO doesn’t need to replace ‘The Sopranos’ with a show that gets them x million viewers. It won’t matter one dollar to their bottom line.”

What does matter to HBO’s bottom line is keeping its promise to subscribers: that it’s still the place where the best artists come to do their best work. As if to underscore its confidence, HBO gave NEWSWEEK an exclusive look at all five of its new series, and what comes across is a network determined to challenge its audience. Right after the “Sopranos” finale on June 10, HBO will launch David Milch’s aggressively noncommercial “John From Cincinnati,” an existential mind-bender about a family of tarnished surfing legends visited by a mysterious stranger named John, who is many things—a naif, a miracle worker, possibly an extraterrestrial—but he’s definitely not from Cincinnati. “There is no map to this show at all,” says HBO’s Strauss. “It couldn’t be anywhere else, that’s for sure.” A week later HBO will premiere “Flight of the Conchords,” a droll, low-fi sitcom about “New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk-parody group.” “Conchords” and “John From Cincinnati” couldn’t be more different, but they’re both triumphs of narrowcasting. Their audiences are sure to be small, but devout, and that’s just fine with HBO.

Besides, if the channel needs a big hit, it’s probably got one in “12 Miles of Bad Road,” a ruthlessly funny “Dallas” for the Bush era starring Lily Tomlin and created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (“Designing Women”). “12 Miles” features the next great HBO family, the Shakespeares of Texas, only this family buys 30-foot naval destroyers to use as fishing boats and thanks the Lord during Grace for “our incredible acreage.” The bad news? It won’t air until next year, and HBO is hurting now. But salvation can wait.