HBO has been struggling to come up with a hit show after “The Sopranos.” It has yet to do so, but yesterday it was able to buy a bit more time, at least another year.

   The pay-cable network announced that there will be eight bonus episodes of the mob epic tacked onto the sixth and what was long presumed to be the hit series' last season.
   The eight added episodes will air in 2007.
   There had been speculation for months that HBO would extend its biggest hit’s run, especially after new shows such as “The Comeback” and “Carnivale” flopped and people began to question HBO’s reputation for top-quality TV. 

    The “Sopranos’” sixth season will premiere in March 2006 with 12 episodes. The eight bonus episodes will debut in January 2007, though the network is not calling it a new season as such.

    HBO employed a similar strategy for the final season of “Sex and the City,” running 12 episodes of season six in the summer of 2003 and then returning with eight more in January 2004. 

    The move gives HBO more time to figure out a post-“Sopranos” programming strategy, which will no doubt include premiering as many shows as possible out of the mob drama to take advantage of its big audience.

   HBO has not launched a successful new show independent of “Sopranos” or “Sex” in years. It canceled drama “Carnivale” after two seasons, and Lisa Kudrow’s much-derided post-“Friends” show “The Comeback,” which debuted earlier this summer, seems like a goner.

   Though critical favorite “Entourage” has been renewed, its viewership is off from its first season. “Deadwood’s” numbers were down by about a third without a “Sopranos” lead-in. And “Six Feet Under” ends its five-season run this month.

   With eight more episodes of “Sopranos,” HBO gets a bit of breathing room. The drama averaged nearly 10 million viewers last season, more than triple any of HBO's current shows’ average. The fifth-season finale of “Sopranos” aired in June 2004, drawing 11 million viewers.

   “Sopranos” creator David Chase had said for years that he would end the series when he felt he had run out of fresh ideas, and for a long time it looked as though the 12 episodes set to air next year would be the last. But in recent months Chase has hinted that he might extend the series after all, and speculation has increased over recent weeks, leading up to yesterday's announcement. 
   Extra episodes will mean extra money for HBO, which earlier this year sold syndication rights to the show to A&E. With a price tag of $2.55 million per episode, it became the most expensive per-episode show to ever enter syndication.