Showtime Names Countee VP of Originals

Brendan Countee, former head of comedy at Hulu, has been named VP of original programming at Showtime. He’ll be based on the west coast, where his responsibilities will include the development and creative oversight of original series.

“As Showtime continues to increase its footprint across platforms and expand our series and limited series output throughout the year, we are excited to also grow our programming department,” said Gary Levine, president of programming at Showtime Networks. “Brendan brings an incredibly diverse background to the job–in comedy as a writer/ performer, as a respected development executive and with his accomplishments in the streaming world. Most importantly, he’s bright, talent-friendly and passionate; qualities we truly value here at Showtime.”

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At Hulu, Countee oversaw the development and production of Casual, The Mindy Project and Difficult People, among other series.

Prior to his time at Hulu, Countee was a writer and producer, developing half-hour comedy pilots for ABC Studios and Twentieth Century Fox, as well a feature-length comedy for Chernin Entertainment. He was also a writer and producer for Alleyoop Media.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone is content director at B+C and Multichannel News. He joined B+C in 2005 and has covered network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television, including writing the "Local News Close-Up" market profiles. He also hosted the podcasts "Busted Pilot" and "Series Business." His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Boston Globe and New York magazine.