Just a few years ago, it seemed like Showtime was going to make it.
Long the Lady Edith to HBO’s Lady Mary – to use a metaphor from a show that doesn’t air on either subscription channel – in 2011 Showtime was killing it.
Dexter was a high-profile ratings hit and the first season of Homeland won six Emmys, including best drama. Weeds was entering the end of its successful run and Nurse Jackie was riding high following Edie Falco’s Emmy win for best actress in a comedy the previous year, an award that Toni Collette won the year before for United States of Tara.
This was all great for business. By 2011, Showtime had more than 21 million subscribers, up from about 14 million in 2005. It was making gains on HBO, which consistently had 28 million subscribers in the same window. For HBO and Showtime and their subscription competitors, the name of the game has always been getting to a point where so much original programming is essential that people will pay up each month. In 2011, it seemed Showtime had finally reached that tipping point.
Then something happened. Weeds, Dexter, and United States of Tara came to a close. Homeland hit the creative skids, faltering with critics, and lost all its must-see-TV heat. Its third season was so bad that it was only nominated twice during the 2014 Emmys and was shut out of the best drama race.
Shows such as Ray Donovan, Shameless, Masters of Sex and House of Lies, modestly enjoyed by critics and the Emmy voters, weren’t part of the cultural conversation in the way their predecessors were, though they pulled in a decent number of viewers. In March 2015, Starz beat out Showtime to become the No2 subscription channel, with 23.3 million subscribers to Showtime’s 23.1. HBO is still the boss on cable with 31 million, though Netflix has 42 million US subscribers online.
This year at the Emmys, Showtime was nowhere to be found while HBO won best comedy, best drama and best limited series, toppling everything in its path. Showtime scarcely had any nominations – 18 overall – and only took home one trophy, for Joan Cusack’s guest turn on Shameless. The Affair, which took home two Golden Globes in January including best series, wasn’t nominated at all.
So what happened? Well, let’s look at this year’s Emmys again. HBO won 43 trophies, mostly for ratings smash Game of Thrones, cementing its cultural dominance. Amazon won five awards, Netflix four, and Comedy Central and FX both won eight.
The field is more crowded than ever. This Sunday, both Homeland and The Affair return to Showtime (at 9pm and 10pm EST) and they’re both getting excellent reviews. But is it going to be enough for Showtime to get back to their tipping point?
The face stiff opposition in the prestige television field. The Leftovers debuts its second season, also earning raves, at the same time as Homeland, as does The Good Wife, the closest thing the networks have to a high-end drama. In the coming weeks FX launches the new seasons of American Horror Story and Fargo, AMC brings back ratings juggernaut The Walking Dead, Cinemax has The Knick, Amazon debuts new comedy Red Oaks, and The CW unveils Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the buzziest show of the networks’ fall season and a project which Showtime handed down to its corporate sister (both are owned by Viacom).
I’m sure there is a Netflix project I’ve forgotten about – because they’re rolling out a new series every time you open your internet browser.
This is the age of “peak TV” and everyone is suffering because the embarrassment of riches is making it harder and harder for any new programs to stand out, even ones that win awards and are critical darlings. For shows that lose their cachet, like Homeland did by letting Carrie and Brody’s romance linger far too long, it’s hard to get them back. Homeland got another nomination for best series at the Emmys for its fourth-season return to form, but viewership was down by 300,000. Considering the third season only averaged 1.9 million viewers, that’s a huge chunk.
Showtime’s biggest bet for regaining the heat is in the return of Twin Peaks, but that doesn’t even have a firm premiere date and who knows how many viewers will tune in for a show that is more than 20 years old, even one as beloved as this one.
It’s hard out there for smaller networks such as Showtime when everyone is trying to get into the original series game. Both Showtime and corporate sister CBS have their own standalone streaming services, similar to HBO Now. It would make sense to at least package these two together, increasing the value of one giant streaming service over two smaller ones. CBS is no longer part of Viacom, but maybe reteaming with its old corporate partners may be its best bet to stay alive alongside an increasingly nimble HBO and the runaway train of Netflix. If it could add MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and other channels under one huge umbrella, it would be much more of a threat.
In the age of “peak TV”, where there are both more shows and more ways to watch them, Showtime’s strength is going to be in numbers, creating a beast so big that even lone wolf HBO can’t hunt it as prey.
- This article was amended on 5 October 2015. Showtime have 23.1 million subscribers, not 22 million; their streaming service is available through Apple, Roku, Google, Amazon, Sony and Hulu rather than just Hulu; and its parent company CBS is no longer part of Viacom. This has been corrected.
