Following the recent demise of its perpetual hot property, The Sopranos, The Movie Network on Tuesday announced a discreetly sexy fall lineup.

The two highest-profile new series, Showtime’s Californication and HBO’s Tell Me You Love Me, are already notorious for their sexual content. The latter in particular, an hour-long serial drama about married couples in therapy, is said to push the envelope even by HBO standards, with three or four explicit sex scenes in each episode. The TMN news release, however, highlights Californication, a half-hour comedy/drama starring David Duchovny as a blocked writer who has extramarital sex and does drugs.

According to Kevin Wright, SVP of programming at parent Astral Television Networks, premium TV is no sexier or grittier than usual.

‘I guess The Sopranos was obviously a premiere pioneer in this area, pushing both sex and violence at the service of story and character,’ says Wright. ‘But nobody ever said to watch The Sopranos for its sex and violence.’ He adds that TMN hasn’t noticed any subscriber decline since the Mafia series wrapped in June.

TMN also announced the return of Showtime’s Dexter — Wright says it scores well as a potential draw for new subscribers — along with the Peabody-winning drama Brotherhood.

Other HBO series include the new In Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne; 12 Miles of Bad Road, a new comedy from Designing Women creator Linda Bloodworth Thomason; the sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the fifth and final season of The Wire.

Next spring and summer will see the premiere of previously announced Canadian titles: ZOS: Zones of Separation, the eight-part international drama by Paul Gross’ Whizbang Films; The Weight, about morally suspect cops, from playwright and This Is Wonderland co-creator George Walker; and the fourth and final season of ReGenesis.

Along with programming, Wright says that TMN is keeping close pace with technological advances to convince subscribers they’re getting a premium experience.

‘It’s critical to us,’ he says. ‘We have to have the latest ways of experiencing that high-quality drama that make it more compelling, whether it’s [Dolby Digital] 5.1, high definition, multiplexes or, fairly recently, the on-demand.’

Even if there’s no incremental charge to the consumer for these services, says Wright, it’s still a saving. ‘The cost of adding a subscriber is greater than the cost of keeping one happy.’

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This story has been corrected. It previously referred to Tell Me You Love Me as a half-hour series, and to In Treatment and 12 Miles of Bad Road as returning, not new shows.