Showtime (TV network)

Showtime is an American premium television network that serves as the flagship service of the Showtime Networks subsidiary of ViacomCBS's domestic media networks arm, which also owns sister services The Movie Channel and Flix. Showtime's programming primarily includes theatrically released motion pictures and original television series, along with boxing and mixed martial arts matches, occasional stand-up comedy specials and made-for-TV movies.

The Showtime brand is used by a number of channels and platforms around the world, but primarily refers to the group of eight multiplex channels in the United States. Showtime is available to 29.7 million households in the U.S. The channel and its corresponding networks are headquartered at Paramount Plaza on the northern end of New York City's Broadway district.

Early history (1976–1982)
Showtime was launched on July 1, 1976 on Times-Mirror Cable systems in Escondido, Long Beach and Palos Verdes, California through the conversion of 10,000 subscribers of the previous Channel One franchise. The following week on July 8, Showtime launched on Viacom Cablevision's system in Dublin, California; the channel was originally owned by Viacom. The first program and television special to be broadcast on Showtime was Celebration, a concert special featuring performances by Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd and ABBA. By the end of its first year on the air, Showtime had a total of 55,000 subscribers nationwide. On March 7, 1978, Showtime became a nationally distributed service after it was uplinked to satellite, turning it into a competitor with HBO and other pay cable networks.

In 1979, Viacom sold a 50% ownership interest in Showtime to the TelePrompTer Corporation. On July 4, 1981, Showtime adopted a 24-hour programming schedule (rival HBO would eventually follow suit in December of that year). In 1982, Group W Cable, a subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corporation (which had acquired TelePrompTer the previous year), sold its 50% stake in Showtime back to Viacom for $75 million; the sale of Group W's stake in the channel occurred as the company had entered into a partnership with Walt Disney Productions (now The Walt Disney Company) to develop a competing premium service, The Disney Channel (Group W dropped out of the joint venture that September, due to disagreements over creative control and financial obligations). 1982 saw the premiere of Showtime's first made-for-cable movie Falcon's Gold and its first original series and children's program Faerie Tale Theatre.

Formation of Showtime Networks and ownership by Viacom (1982–2005)
In August 1982, MCA Inc. (then-owner of Universal Pictures), Gulf+Western (then-owner of Paramount Pictures) and Warner Communications reached an agreement to jointly acquire The Movie Channel (TMC), in which the three companies combined would acquire a controlling 75% interest in the service (with each holding a 25% ownership stake) from Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment. The proposal was motivated by the studios wanting to increase their share of revenue for licensing rights to their films to premium television services, as well as concerns that HBO's dominance of that market and its pre-buying of pay cable rights to films prior to their theatrical release would result in that service holding undue negotiating power for the television rights, resulting in a lower than suitable licensing fee rate the studios would be paid for individual films. The three companies officially announced their agreement in principle to acquire interests in TMC on November 11, 1982. Subsequently, in late December of that year, the U.S. Department of Justice (which had blocked a similar attempt by MCA, Gulf+Western, 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures to create a competing pay service, Premiere, in an antitrust case ruling two years earlier in January 1981) launched a routine preliminary inquiry into the proposed partnership.

On January 7, 1983, Viacom International added itself as a partner and drafted an amendment to the proposal to consolidate The Movie Channel with Showtime. Under the revised proposal, the four studios would each own a 22.58% stake in the two networks, with American Express owning a 9.68% minority interest. In addition, the consortium would appoint a management team separate from those employed by the two channels – which would continue to operate as separate services – to operate the joint venture. However, the deal ran into regulatory hurdles since Warner, Universal and Paramount received 50% of their respective total revenue from film releases and licensing fees from premium services; furthermore, Showtime and TMC combined would control about 30% of the pay cable marketplace, creating an oligopoly with HBO (which, in conjunction with Cinemax, controlled 60% of the market).

After a four-month investigation resulted in the Department of Justice filing a civil antitrust lawsuit against the five parties to block the Showtime-TMC merger on June 10, 1983, the Department asked Warner and American Express to restructure the deal during hearings for the case. The Department's decision – citing concerns, including some expressed by HBO management, that combining the assets of Showtime and TMC would stifle competition in the sale of their programming and that of other pay cable services to cable providers – was despite the fact that, under the original proposal, MCA, Gulf+Western and Warner had each agreed to continue licensing films released by their respective movie studios to competing pay television networks. The partners involved in the merger would also set standard prices for films that were acquired for broadcast on The Movie Channel and Showtime, either those produced by the studio partners or by unassociated film studios. To address the Justice Department's concerns over the deal, the four partners submitted another revised proposal for consideration on July 19, that included guarantees of conduct agreeing that Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. would not receive higher residual licensing payments for films acquired by Showtime and The Movie Channel than that paid by other studios, and that all four partners would not permit the two channels in the venture to pay lower fees for films produced by three studio partners than that paid by smaller pay television services for the same films.

After the revised proposal was rejected on July 28, Warner Communications and American Express restructured the purchase to include only Viacom as a partner, bowing Gulf+Western and MCA out from the partnership. The changes – which Justice Department officials acknowledged would "prevent any anti-competitive effect from arising" following the merger, by allowing other premium services to enter the market should the venture significantly raise licensing fee prices for films – led the Justice Department to drop its challenge to the merger agreement on August 12; the Department formally approved the deal the following day on August 13. When the deal was completed on September 6, 1983, the operations of The Movie Channel and Showtime were folded into a new holding company, Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc., which was majority owned by Viacom (controlling 50% of the venture's common stock as well as investing $40 million in cash), with Warner Communications (which owned 31%) and Warner-Amex (which owned the remaining 19% interest) as minority partners.

As the consolidation of its operations with The Movie Channel was ongoing, in 1983, Showtime increased its national distribution on cable providers when competing premium service Spotlight ceased operations, effectively absorbing that channel's subscriber base.

1984 saw the network's first major promotional campaign, "We Make Excitement" (also referred to, particularly in bumpers and program introductions, as "Showtime Excitement"), created by the J. Walter Thompson company and utilizing an adapted version of the Pointer Sisters song "I'm So Excited". The campaign lasted into 1986 and coincided with both the exclusivity deal signed with Paramount for films (see below) and a graphical upgrade to the network's presentation to include computer-generated graphics.On August 10, 1985, after Time Inc. and cable provider Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) jointly submitted a bid to buy the company for $900 million and the assumption of $500 million in debt as well as an earlier offer by American Express the previous month to buy out Warner's share of the company (under a clause in the agreement that allowed either company the option of buying out their partner's stake in Warner-Amex), Warner Communications exercised an option to acquire American Express' 50% share of Warner-Amex Cable Communications for $450 million. Among the options, barring that it chose to sell Viacom a 50% interest in the company for $450 million, the deal originally excluded Warner-Amex's 19% interest in Showtime-The Movie Channel, Inc.; that interest would have reverted to Warner, which intended to operate Warner-Amex as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Two weeks later on August 26, Viacom acquired Warner Communications and Warner-Amex's combined 50% ownership interest in Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. as well as full ownership of the Warner-Amex and public shareholder interests in MTV Networks for $671.7 million, giving Viacom exclusive ownership of both networks and once again making it the sole owner of Showtime through its $500 million cash payment and acquisition of 1.625 million shares from Warner for the latter's 31% stake in Showtime/The Movie Channel and Warner-Amex's 19% interest in the unit and its 60% interest in MTV Networks (Viacom owned Showtime alone or jointly with other companies – TelePrompTer Corporation, and later briefly, its successor Group W Cable – from the time it launched in July 1976). The buyout, part of an option given by Warner in its purchase of American Express' interest in MTV, was exercised in part to finance much of the buyout of Showtime/The Movie Channel without borrowing any money (ironically, Warner Communications would eventually acquire rivals HBO and Cinemax, when the company merged with Time Inc. in 1989 to form Time Warner). The subsidiary was renamed Showtime Networks, Inc. in 1988.

Also in 1988, the company formed Showtime Event Television (now Showtime PPV) as a pay-per-view distributor of special event programming. In 1990, Showtime ventured into acquiring and premiering independent films exclusively for the channel as part of the 30-Minute Movie short film anthology series. One of its first premieres, 12:01 PM, was nominated for an Academy Award, while 1992's Session Man won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. In the years that followed, Showtime expanded its acquisitions into the realm of feature-length fare, including the Adrian Lyne-directed 1997 remake of Lolita.

In 2000, Showtime launched "Showtime Interactive 24.7", a service that provided DVD-style interaction of its entertainment offerings. The following year in 2001, Showtime became one of the first cable networks to launch a high definition simulcast feed (with Star Trek: Insurrection becoming the first film on the network to be broadcast in HD); Showtime also began to provide Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound on select programs.

Under CBS Corporation ownership (2005–present)
On June 14, 2005, Viacom decided to separate itself into two companies (only six years after the company's acquisition of CBS), both of which would be controlled by Viacom parent National Amusements, amid stagnation of the company's stock price. When the split was completed on December 31, 2005, the original Viacom was restructured as CBS Corporation and acquired Showtime Networks along with CBS' broadcasting assets (including the CBS television network, UPN and the company's broadcast group, which became CBS Television Stations), Paramount Television (now the separate arms CBS Television Studios for network and cable production, and CBS Television Distribution for production of first-run syndicated programs and off-network series distribution), advertising firm Viacom Outdoor (renamed CBS Outdoor), Simon & Schuster, and Paramount Parks (which was later sold to Cedar Fair, L.P. on June 30, 2006). A new company that assumed the Viacom name kept Paramount Pictures, the MTV Networks and BET Networks cable divisions, and Famous Music (the latter of which was sold to Sony-ATV Music Publishing in May 2007).

List of channels
Depending on the service provider, Showtime provides up to fifteen multiplex channels – eight 24-hour multiplex channels, seven of which are simulcast in both standard definition and high definition (with the exception of Showtime Family Zone, which broadcasts solely in standard definition) – as well as a subscription video-on-demand service (Showtime On Demand). Showtime broadcasts its primary and multiplex channels on both Eastern and Pacific Time Zone schedules. The respective coastal feeds of each channel are usually packaged together (though most cable providers only offer the east and west coast feeds of the main Showtime channel), resulting in the difference in local airtimes for a particular movie or program between two geographic locations being three hours at most.

Subscribers to the separate premium film service The Movie Channel, which is also owned by CBS Corporation, do not necessarily have to subscribe to Showtime in order to receive TMC; both The Movie Channel and co-owned fellow movie service Flix are typically sold together in a package (although in the case of Flix, this depends on whether that channel is carried on a particular television provider), though DirecTV and Dish Network alternately sell TMC through a separate film tier; this package was known in the late 1990s and early 2000s as Showtime Unlimited (and sometimes included SundanceTV when it was the Sundance Channel, as Showtime held a stake in it during the era).

Background
In 1991, after HBO and Cinemax debuted the first premium television multiplex service in the United States, Showtime followed with the testing of its own secondary service – Showtime 2 – on October 1 of that year on two systems operated by TeleCable (one of these systems, TeleCable's Racine, Wisconsin operation, had also participated in the multiplexing test for HBO and Cinemax). In April 1994, Showtime announced the creation of a new themed multiplex service, consisting of five channels: Spanish language service Showtime En Espanol; family-oriented Showtime Family Television; action-oriented service Showtime Action Television; a service featuring comedy films and series called Showtime Comedy Television; and an all-movie channel called Showtime Film Festival. This planned extension to the multiplex did not come to fruition – although a third multiplex service, Showtime 3, would make its debut in 1996.

The multiplex would eventually expand over time with the launch of the action film channel Showtime Extreme on March 10, 1998, followed by the debut of the science fiction channel Showtime Beyond in September 1999; the Showtime Unlimited name for the Showtime multiplex, TMC and Flix came into use around this time. Three additional themed channels made their debut in March 2001: Showtime Family Zone (which carries films intended for family audiences), Showtime Next (a channel featuring films and series that appeal toward adults between the ages of 18 and 34 years old) and Showtime Women (a channel featuring films and Showtime original programs that appeal toward a female audience). The programming format of Showtime 3 was overhauled five months later on July 1, 2001 to focus on theatrical movie releases and Showtime's original made-for-cable films, that under the new name Showcase.

Showtime Family Zone, Showtime Next and Showtime Women do not have distribution by most pay television providers as extensive as the other Showtime multiplex channels. The availability of either of the three channels on cable providers varies depending on the market; Dish Network carries neither of the three, and DirecTV carries Showtime Next and Showtime Women, but not Showtime Family Zone.

Showtime HD
Showtime HD is a high definition simulcast feed of Showtime that broadcasts in the 1080i resolution format. In addition to its main channel, all of Showtime's multiplex channels except for Family Zone also broadcast in the format, though availability of all of the HD feeds varies by provider. Showtime HD is available through virtually all providers which carry Showtime, along with Showtime's streaming services. Films shown on Showtime's HD simulcast feeds are broadcast in their native aspect ratio if that version is provided by the studios that maintain pay television distribution rights with the channel.

Showtime on Demand
Showtime operates a subscription video-on-demand television service called Showtime on Demand, which is available at no additional charge to Showtime subscribers. Showtime on Demand offers feature films, episodes of Showtime's original series, adult programming and sports events. Showtime on Demand's rotating program selection incorporates select new titles that are added each Friday, alongside existing program titles held over from the previous one to two weeks. The service began to be test marketed in 2001 and was officially launched in July 2002.

Showtime Anytime
On October 27, 2010, Showtime launched Showtime Anytime, a website that features around 400 hours of streaming program content available in standard or high definition that is accessible to subscribers of the Showtime television service. Content available on the service includes Showtime original programming, feature films, comedy specials, documentaries and sports programming. It is currently available nationally to Showtime subscribers of satellite provider AT&T DirecTV, and regionally by Comcast Xfinity; Spectrum; Optimum; Cox Communications; CenturyLink Prism; Grande Communications; Mediacom; AT&T U-verse; and Verizon FIOS. The Showtime Anytime app (which is offered as a free download) was initially released on the iOS App Store for the iPad and iPhone on October 3, 2011. On October 1, 2012, an Android app became available through the Google Play platform for Android devices.

In September 2017, it was discovered that the Showtime Anytime website was injected with code that mined the cryptocurrency Monero using the viewer's CPU, which would potentially cause degraded performance for other websites and applications. The code was removed as soon as it was discovered.

Showtime (streaming service)
On June 3, 2015, Showtime parent CBS Corporation announced that it would launch an over-the-top subscription video on demand service that would be distributed as a standalone offering without the requirement of having an existing television subscription to use (in the manner of competitor HBO's OTT offering, HBO Now). The service, which uses the same branding as the linear television channel, was officially launched on July 7, 2015 (coinciding with the season premieres of Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex on July 12). The service was initially available for purchase through Apple Inc. (to Apple TV and iOS devices), Hulu, Roku, PlayStation Vue and Amazon Prime as well as through Showtime's website (SHO.com).

The Showtime streaming service is identical to Showtime Anytime; it offers a back catalog of episodes of various past and present Showtime original series (with new episodes of Showtime original series being made available for streaming the same day as their original broadcast on the main linear Showtime channel), feature films and documentaries, and sports events and analysis programs. Subscriptions are also available over Amazon Prime (Amazon Channels), Hulu, The Roku Channel, and Apple TV (Apple TV Channels) as add-ons. Unlike HBO Now, Showtime also provides live streams of the East and West Coast television feeds of the linear Showtime channel (live streams of Showtime's multiplex services, and sister networks The Movie Channel, The Movie Channel Xtra, and Flix are not currently available on the service; live streams of Showtime's multiplex channels are available for Amazon Prime users as part of the Showtime add-on subscription).

SHO Sync
On September 22, 2011, Showtime launched Showtime Social, a second screen interactive app providing interactivity with Showtime programs including viewer-participant polls and trivia questions as well as real-time aggregation of Twitter, Facebook and blog comments about particular Showtime programs; the app utilizes Automated Content Recognition technology to generate interactive content regardless of whether it is being watched live, on-demand or by DVR; the app also displays heat maps depicting viewer reactions throughout the duration of an episode at the conclusion of the program. The app – which was renamed SHO Sync on September 13, 2012 – was originally released for Apple iOS devices (iPad and iPhone), with an app for LG-manufactured Smart TVs being released on August 15, 2013.

On July 9, 2015, Showtime announced it would discontinue SHO Sync, immediately discontinuing support of the iPad app with the iPhone and LG apps to be discontinued at a later date. However, the channel hinted that the core interactive functions of SHO Sync may be restored in a different form, with the possibility of being incorporated into Showtime Anytime and the Showtime over-the-top streaming service.

Programming
Since the early 1980s, Showtime has run an adult-oriented late night programming block on its main channel called "Showtime After Hours" (which was briefly branded as "Showtime Late Night" during the mid-1990s) each night after 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time; programs featured within the block include feature films, series produced specifically for broadcast during the block and occasional stand-up comedy specials. Until the formation of Showtime Family Zone in 2001, Showtime heavily incorporated programming aimed at children and teenagers as part of its daytime schedule; in particular, the main channel ran a late afternoon block of teen-oriented series on Sundays (such as Ready or Not, Chris Cross and Degrassi High), as well as a morning block of shows aimed at younger children (such as OWL/TV and The Busy World of Richard Scarry) during the early and mid-1990s, and a weekday mid-afternoon and Sunday morning film block called "Showtime Familytime" that ran during the 1980s and 1990s.

Softcore erotica programming has previously aired during the "After Hours" block, though adult films have been absent from Showtime's primary channel since the mid-2000s; the network began broadcasting a limited amount of original erotica series (such as Beach Heat: Miami) on its main channel in 2010, after having been absent for most of the previous decade. The network's multiplex channels Showtime 2 and Showtime Extreme also occasionally feature adult films during the overnight hours, though this has become less commonplace since late 2011.

The main Showtime network also carried, unusually for a premium channel, news programming; the now-defunct All News Channel (partially owned by Viacom) produced 90-second long news updates for Showtime in the early 1990s (ANC also produced news updates for fellow Viacom network VH1).

International
Outside of the United States, several pay television networks utilize the Showtime name and former logo through licensing agreements with Showtime Networks, such as Showtime Australia, Showtime Arabia, Showtime Scandinavia and Spain's Showtime Extreme. Showtime launched a South African version as part of the new TopTV satellite provider's package on May 1, 2010. Chinese streamer PPTV agreed to a multiyear license to stream CBS and Showtime series in the country. The agreement gives 400 million users access to select Showtime series from CBS.