The original post: /r/television by /u/Alternative-Cake-833 on 2025-10-08 21:46:30+00:00.
I mean, the downfall of Showtime is interesting to say at least. It’s quite crazy to see a network like Showtime be reduced to atoms, when Showtime used to be like HBO in terms of selection and programming. And it’s sad to see it happen because I will say this.
10 years ago, they used to be a pretty good competitor to HBO. You had boxing, you had stuff such as Ray Donovan, Billions and Shameless, you had unscripted series on it, you had first-run movies on Showtime too. It seemed to be well run too.
But then Paramount started to make bad choices for Showtime after they re-merged with CBS. First, they axed the guy that was running Showtime (David Nevins). Then, they changed the name to Paramount+ with Showtime (which is a dumb name imo), proceeded to gut most of their staff and programming and then removed boxing from the network.
Now only five shows remain on Showtime: The Chi (which is ending after season 8), Yellowjackets, The Agency, Dexter: Resurrection and Dreaming Whilst Black (the latter is a British show, acquired from BBC). And to top it off, they aren’t what it used to be either (they also lost movies from A24 a while back). Compared to three years ago, it wasn’t like this and now, it looks small. They also show tons of Paramount+ series nowadays, though they still show first-run movies and older movies.
And since Skydance took over Paramount, they don’t seem to be investing in Showtime anymore. I feel like that Skydance may be starting to phase out Showtime as a network and absorb the whole network into Paramount+. It’s sad to see this happen to a network that was famous but it doesn’t matter anymore since Skydance is probably not going to invest in some of Paramount’s cable channels anymore.