It’s Showtime for Showtime

With Bob Greenblatt's programming strategy kicking in this fall, the premium programmer is ready to give HBO a run for subs' loyalty.

By Shirley Brady

When Showtime sent actor Hank Azaria a script for his new drama series Huff, he wasn't happy. It's not that he didn't want the work, he simply didn't want Showtime. With HBO's larger-than-life reputation for high-quality programming and its ever-growing Emmy collection, an offer from Showtime seemed more like a booby prize to Azaria.

"I wanted this role, but I was skeptical," Azaria says.

Azaria reluctantly took the role after his agent convinced him that Showtime was serious about stepping up its comedies and dramas to better compete with HBO. A five-minute conversation with Showtime's president of entertainment Bob Greenblatt--hired shortly after he accepted the Huff role--convinced Azaria that he made the right decision.

"You can tell the man is serious about picking up Showtime's game and that's he capable of doing it," Azaria says. "In the year and a half that I've been working with him on Huff, he's certainly shown all the right moves for doing just that."

Greenblatt's reputation as a television legend is resonating in the content community, which knows him best for developing The Sopranos as an executive at Fox (they passed on it, HBO grabbed it and the rest is Emmy history). Plus, his Greenblatt-Janollari shingle makes Six Feet Under for HBO. That track record makes him the dream executive for every actor, producer, director and writer aspiring to bring their best work to television, specifically premium television where there's no Procter & Gamble to please.

"The message that Bob is sending to the creative community is that he is willing to make a difference and open the doors to creative folks with truly unique ideas and passions, and that makes Showtime the go-to place instead of just HBO," says Andy Fickman, director and executive producer of Reefer Madness, Greenblatt's first original feature (it premieres in March) for Showtime. "If Bob is the new face of Showtime, as their tag line goes, then Showtime is gonna be huge, and HBO better watch out."

These are the kinds of proclamations that are proving to Showtime Networks chairman Matt Blank that he made the right decision in hiring Greenblatt in June 2003. Blank points to the Huff premiere in November and Reefer Madness in the spring as two examples of high-quality programming that will begin to change industry perceptions about Showtime. Blank also is thrilled with Greenblatt's other pilots for potential original series, including Hate, Brotherhood and The Cell.

Greenblatt's Influence

Under Greenblatt, Showtime is shifting its focus away from churning out original movies to developing the kind of Emmy-winning series that have made HBO the standard-bearer in dramas (The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire) and comedies (Sex and the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm). He's been given an increased budget--almost (but not quite) a Blank check, if you will--with the mandate to create fewer original series with more top-notch talent on both sides of the camera. The first fruit of this labor is Huff, which begins its 13-episode run at 10 p.m. on Nov. 7, a Sunday.

"These series really are the centerpiece of everything we're doing," says Greenblatt. "It's a very narrow needle to thread because we don't have the luxury of putting on 10 or 12 shows here like I was used to when I was at Fox or as the networks can do. We have to really be very focused and hope we've put all of our eggs in the right basket because it's a couple of series that we're going to roll out in a given year, along with specials and other things that go along with it."

Greenblatt's to-do list is vast. He has been busy tweaking returning series including Dead Like Me (starting with paying for an extra day of shooting per episode). He is bringing more original production (Hate, Brotherhood) back to the U.S. cities in which they're based, instead of shooting only in Canada. He wants to select more A-list documentaries, such as this month's Smile. And he wants to pursue original movies like Reefer Madness and Our Fathers, which just wrapped principal photography.

Greenblatt also is looking to make a run at HBO's lock on the comedy business. First order of funny business: co-producing Sex and the City star Mario Cantone's Broadway show (another first), entitled Laugh Whore, this fall, and airing it on Showtime next year. Blank's boss (and old friend), Viacom co-chair Tom Freston, is helping Showtime tap into more corporate synergies, which will lead to the developing of edgy stand-up specials with Comedy Central and the cross-promotion of Greenblatt's new shows on Viacom's television networks.

How Will MSOs Benefit?

Showtime EVP Mark Greenberg wears many hats, including developing at least two new channels, one of which is Logo, the gay and lesbian service that Showtime incubated and MTV Networks is launching in February. As the overseer of research and new platforms such as Showtime On Demand, he also helps affiliates leverage the new level of programming and marketing to drive their new businesses.

"The feedback from our research is that Showtime On Demand creates more stickiness for our subs--when people understand how to use it," Greenberg says. "SOD clearly is providing incremental value on both the acquisition and retention sides. Using our ability to understand what consumers want helps us drive that business for our affiliates."

As a premium network, Blank argues that Showtime is better suited for this on-demand world than his ad-supported brethren.

"We don't have to start making decisions about what does on demand mean for your advertising revenue," Blank says. "People are paying for premium television so the more we adapt to technology and the more we expose them to our product, the more they're likely to keep subscribing in some form."

Because premium programming is a mature business, it's critical that Showtime, as the No. 2 player in the category after HBO and above Starz, steps up its game to help its distributors boost their bottom lines, says Kagan Research analyst Deana Myers.

"Pay networks definitely add value to their affiliates," Myers says. "They have helped consumers learn to use on demand with their SVOD products, which has helped cable compete with satellite. And their multiplexes have added value to the digital platform."

Taking on the Top Dog

For many industry watchers, Showtime's timing for taking on HBO couldn't be better, since two of HBO's most popular series--Sex and the City and The Sopranos--aren't on screen, Sex having ended its run this year and Sopranos being on a long delay until early 2006.

Part of Showtime's strategy involves boosting its brand's value with smarter marketing and programming. "We have really tried to lock the programming and marketing together much more tightly than we have historically," Blank says. "We're putting a significant effort behind Huff because if we can get the sampling and get people to stay with it, we think they're really going to get hooked on it."

The task of ramping up consumer and affiliate marketing falls to Len Fogge, Showtime's EVP of creative and marketing, who started to rethink the brand's positioning by abandoning the "No Limits" tag line before Greenblatt was hired.

"When Bob came and we started talking, it was just very clear to me that where he was going was really not going to be right for that," Fogge says. "Because what he's doing is even bigger than `No Limits.'"

In taking on HBO, Blank praises the network, his alma mater, for lifting everyone's game across television. "When you're that successful and win that many awards, people will say, `OK: what's next?' And that's not fair to them," he says. "That said, we have an opportunity to grow into those HBO homes. If we do a better job of programming and marketing over the next year or two, there's a huge universe of premium households that we can grow into."

Blank's rightfully proud of Showtime's push to bring more diverse programming to television, including Queer as Folk, The L Word, Resurrection Blvd. and Soul Food.

"We've done a great job of turning this company around in the past decade, making it an important and profitable business entity at Viacom, reaching out to underserved audiences and doing a lot of things we've been very proud of on the programming front," he says. "Now it's really time for us to step up and make a bigger splash in the original programming area with more compelling, proprietary programming. We're doing that this fall, and viewers will see more of it come."