Showtime (now known as Paramount+ with Showtime) is an American premium television network and the flagship property of Showtime Networks, a subdivision of the Paramount Media Networks division of Skydance Corporation. Launched on July 1, 1976, Showtime's programming includes original television series produced exclusively for the linear network and developed for the co-owned Paramount+ streaming service, theatrically released and independent motion pictures, documentaries, and occasional stand-up comedy specials, made-for-TV movies, and softcore adult programming.
Headquartered at Paramount Plaza in the northern part of New York City's Broadway district, Showtime operates eight 24-hour, linear multiplex channels and formerly a standalone traditional subscription video on demand service; the channel's programming catalog and livestreams of its primary linear East and West Coast feeds are also available via an ad-free subscription tier of Paramount+ of the same name, which is also sold a la carte through Apple TV Channels, Prime Video Channels, The Roku Channel and YouTube Primetime Channels. (Subscribers of Paramount+'s Prime Video add-on also receive access to the East Coast feeds of Showtime's seven multiplex channels.) It is a sister premium television network to HBO, Cinemax, The Movie Channel and Flix.
In addition, the Showtime brand has been licensed for use by a number of channels and platforms worldwide including Showtime Arabia (it has been merged into OSN) in the Middle East and North Africa, and the now defunct Showtime Movie Channels in Australia. , Showtime's programming was available to approximately 28.567 million American households which subscribed to a multichannel television provider (28.318 million of which receive Showtime's primary channel at a minimum).
History Early years (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. Exactly a week later Showtime launched on Viacom Cablevision's system in Dublin, California; the channel was originally owned by Viacom. The first program 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 55,000 subscribers nationwide. On March 7, 1978, Showtime became a nationally distributed service when it was uplinked to satellite, becoming a competitor with Time Inc.'s HBO and other pay cable networks.
In 1979, Viacom sold 50% of Showtime to the TelePrompTer Corporation. On July 4, 1981, Showtime began a 24-hour programming schedule (rival HBO followed suit in December of the same year). In 1982, Group W Cable, a subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corporation (which 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 happened shortly after the company began a partnership with Walt Disney Productions (now The Walt Disney Company) to develop a competing premium service, The Disney Channel. Group W left the joint venture in September, due to disagreements over creative control and financial obligations. In 1982 Showtime broadcast its 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 the owner of Universal Pictures), Gulf+Western (then the owner of Paramount Pictures) and Warner Communications agreed to acquire The Movie Channel (TMC). The three companies combined acquired a controlling 75% interest in the service (with each holding a 25% ownership stake) from Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment. The deal was spurred 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 announced an agreement in to acquire interests in TMC on November 11, 1982. In late December of the same year, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a routine preliminary inquiry into the proposed partnership. The Department of Justice 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.
On January 7, 1983, Viacom International (adding itself as a partner) 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 continued to operate as separate services–to operate the joint venture. However the deal ran into regulatory hurdles because Warner, Universal, and Paramount received 50% of their respective total revenue from film releases and licensing fees from premium services. Also 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 a revised proposal for consideration on July 19 which 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 those 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 those 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.
In 1984, the network's first major promotional campaign, "We Make Excitement" (also referred to, particularly in bumpers and program introductions, as "Showtime Excitement") was 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 Warner'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 1990 to form Time Warner, which is now known as Warner Bros. Discovery). 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;1992's Session Man won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. During this period, promotional voice-over work for the network was performed by Bill St. James. 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.