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February 11, 2012
 
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Showtime shake-up; fewer films, more series?

by Brad Trechak, posted Apr 21st 2008 5:38PM

ShowtimeParamount, Lionsgate and MGM are launching a new premium cable channel next year that will likely strip Showtime of much of its theatrical movie content. Showtime was originally a sister company to Paramount until 2006 when Viacom president and CEO Les Moonves split the two companies into separate entities.

One of the reasons cited for this move was by the Showtime's vice president of corporate public relations Stu Zakim. He stated that the network no longer wanted to pay "outrageous license fees" for theatrical content.

This is actually a natural progression for the bigger name cable channels. As they develop more original content, they no longer need to rely on the movie studios to provide content for them. This is a far cry from the early days of cable television when HBO and Showtime were known as the channels from which you could watch R-rated movies in the comfort of your own home.

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Dee

Although I'm sure he wishes your statement was true, Les Moonves is not and never was Viacom's president and CEO.

He runs CBS. Sumner Redstone was the one who split Viacom and CBS into separate companies.

April 22 2008 at 12:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
divineparasite

Showtime has the best original series fare currently available on premium networks. Hopefully though they won't be like HBO, nearly every great HBO series has ended, including the end of the much celebrated series "The Wire", and the new series they've brought on to take thier place have hardly been quite as appealing as thier earlier programs like "The Sopranos", "Six Feet Under" or even "Deadwood". Showtime's original fare like "Dexter" and "Brotherhood are fantastic, but as more orginial series come along, they're bound to get a few duds in there.

April 21 2008 at 11:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lucyfan62

Maybe they can bring back DEAD LIKE ME too! When's that movie coming out????

April 21 2008 at 11:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Oreo

HBO was also a children's station, they had Fraggle Rock and several other kid shows.

April 21 2008 at 8:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rich

Now you can watch R-rated TV shows in the comfort of your own home. Yaay!

April 21 2008 at 8:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MERVE-THE-PERVE

They need to come out with season 2 of The Underground. They have been going downhill on their movie selection for awhile now. At least they have some good original stuff now.

April 21 2008 at 6:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Oreo

Now they just need to bring back Odyssey 5 and we will be all set.

April 21 2008 at 6:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Oreo's comment
Joey Geraci

God, I caught like two episodes of that show on Scifi when they were showing it a while ago, but they stopped right away. Pissed me off. It looked interesting.

April 21 2008 at 7:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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