Posts Tagged ‘David Nevins’

It was four, five years ago that Showtime CEO Matt Blank saw the writing on the wall. In a fascinating interview with Bloomberg TV’s Deirdre Bolton, he notes that the prices for movie broadcast rights from certain Hollywood studios were becoming prohibitive at the time and led him, to the outcry of naysayers, to redirect that money into the development of original programming.

Today, Showtime is sitting pretty with the most decorated and buzzed about drama on TV, Homeland. It’s the show that, as Blank puts it, “people stop me on the street and want to talk about.”

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Get ready for more Jim Rome on your television.

In addition to his daily sports show on CBS Sports Network, Rome will also be on Showtime as the host of Jim Rome On Showtime starting on November 21st at 10 p.m. ET/PT. According to Showtime, the one-hour show, filmed in Los Angeles, will “showcase Rome’s trademark style and opinions that have made him one of the most famous and outspoken sports broadcasters of his generation.”

“We’ve been very focused on increasing the amount and profile of sports programming on our air at SHOWTIME,” said David Nevins, president of entertainment, Showtime Networks Inc.  “Jim Rome is someone I’ve listened to for years; he is one of the top voices in the American sports world, and bringing him to the network in a fresh and premium format is a key part of accomplishing that goal.”

Matt LeBlanc is so good at playing himself, he won a Golden Globe for the effort. And we’re going to get to see him do it again in 2013 when Episodes, Showtime’s satire of the television industry, returns for a third season. David Nevins, President of Entertainment for Showtime, announced the new season of Episodes today, which will consist of nine half-hour episodes.

LeBlanc’s portrayal of a middle-aged celebrity desperately trying to become relevant again is painfully funny. But the main draw for us fishies is that Episodes is a show about writers, relatable scribes struggling with both the creative process and a soul-crushing corporate structure, as obsessed with profit as they are clueless about creating anything of real value. And that’s what success looks like in our industry! What else can you do but laugh?