David Nevins has been promoted to president of Showtime Networks and extended his contract with the company through 2018, Showtime announced Tuesday. Nevins’ expanded role will include oversight of the sports, marketing, creative and digital-media divisions.
Nevins has served as entertainment president of Showtime since 2010, when he was announced as the successor to Robert Greenblatt, who became NBC entertainment chairman.
“David Nevins is one of the most talented executives working in television today,” said Showtime chairman and CEO Matthew C. Blank. “His arrival at Showtime was followed by an incredible period of renewal for our network, and these transformative years have led to critical-acclaim, consistent buzz, subscriber growth and awards recognition. I am confident that his keen eye and creative impact will continue to be felt across all areas of our company for years to come.”
Showtime recently renewed original comedies Episodes, Shameless, and House of Lies, all launched under Nevins, who also greenlit series such as Homeland, Masters of Sex, Ray Donovan, and the upcoming Penny Dreadful. At the Television Critics Association winter press tour in January, Nevins announced two new series—drama The Affair and comedy Happyish. A pilot for the latter starring Philip Seymour Hoffman had already been shot when Hoffman was found dead in February in his New York apartment, the victim of a drug overdose. The series’ status is unknown.
The company has been expanding the reach of its TV Everywhere app Showtime Anytime, announcing a deal in November with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks and another in February with Roku. Showtime has also seen its non-current programming such as The Tudors included in recent SVOD deals made by parent company CBS Corp., such as an extension announced in January of the agreement between CBS and Amazon for the latter’s Prime Instant Video service. Addressing TCA, Nevins discussed Showtime’s on-demand strategy.
“We sort of decided about three years ago, maybe earlier than that, that it was very important, if you want first run programming, if you want to see Homeland, Shameless, House of Lies, you’ve got to subscribe to Showtime,” he said. “And if you want to, once the show has finished its original run like The Borgias or Dexter or The Tudors, we’ll sell that. And some of the shows are exclusive to Netflix. Some of them are on both Netflix and Amazon. So we exist in the ecosystem.”
Before joining Showtime, Nevins served as president of Imagine Television from 2002 until 2010. Previous stints include Fox Broadcasting, where he was executive VP of programming, and NBC, where he was senior VP of primetime series.
