Showtime at TCA: Executive Session Live-Blog

Curious about what’s coming up next for Showtime? Follow along for our live-blog of the Showtime executive session featuring David Nevins from the Television Critics Association…

1:37 PM: Nevins notes when he joined there were 18 million subscribers for Showtime. Now, there are 23 million.

1:38 PM: Showtime has made an overall deal with DEXTER executive producer Scott Buck.

1:39 PM: As of today, subscribers can watch Showtime feeds live on their iPad either on the east or west coast.

1:40 PM: EPISODES returns January 12, 2014! It joins HOUSE OF LIES and SHAMELESS. CALIFORNICATION has moved to spring.

1:41 PM: Josh Hartnett and Eva Green have been tapped for the Showtime series, PENNY DREADFUL, which is aiming to film later this year for a 2014 debut.

1:43 PM: Showtime is also working on a documentary TIME OF DEATH, about people living out the final days of their lives.

1:45 PM: The network officially announced the pilot order of  TRENDING DOWN, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Kathryn Hahn.

1:46 PM: Ruth Wilson has joined the pilot THE AFFAIR.

1:47 PM: For PENNY DREADFUL, Hartnett plays an American fake cowboy who has a dark side to his character, Nevins says. He can’t say too much more now. Green plays Vanessa. (That’s all he can say.)

1:50 PM: “We looked hard at doing a two-hour finale, and the economics of it just didn’t make sense,” Nevins says of THE BORGIAS’ cancellation. “We all got buzzed at lunch by the airplane.” He notes the protestor outside who was outside objecting to the cancellation hadn’t seen the finale, but Nevins says he feels bad about the money being spent.

1:52 PM: “There’s still room to grow,” Nevins says of their subscribers. He notes 23 million homes is great, but at the same time, there are 100 million homes total.

1:54 PM: While PENNY DREADFUL is something Nevins is proud of, how it does won’t necessarily dictate how the network tackles genre going forward. Every project is a case-by-case basis. “I think [PENNY DREADFUL is] going to scare the shit out of people,” Nevins says.

1:58 PM: “How do you keep it authentically compelling and the best version of itself?” Nevins says of the difficult balance of keeping HOMELAND fresh. “You can’t keep it the same dynamic and you have to be willing to change it up…I’ve never been scared of change. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS we flipped over the entire cast in one season…seasons 1 and 2 of HOMELAND were founded on the fulcrum of trust and mistrust of Carrie and Brody. That still exists in season 3, but the characters are extremely estranged and they don’t know what they’re doing. You want Carrie to be a strong, competent, action, heroine, but you want to deal with her vulnerabilities…there’s a lot of little poles that our show exists on. I want our producers to take risks…sometimes you get beat up for them, but I think I’ve said this before: the enemy of good television is boredom and predictability.”

2:05 PM: Nevins calls it premature to talk about Showtime releasing their Showtime Anytime app to non-subscribers.

2:08 PM: Nevins says he’s watched four episodes of TIME OF DEATH, and it’s one of the most powerful things he’s ever seen.

2:10 PM: Nevins says he expects MASTERS OF SEX will skew slightly more female.

2:12 PM: He’s not very concerned about promoting DEXTER’s finale. Nevins thinks the show will promote itself, and as such, they won’t need to ruin every upcoming major surprise that’s coming in the last batch of episodes.

2:14 PM: “We announce a deal with Scott Buck today…draw your own conclusions,” Nevins says about a potential DEXTER spinoff.