Showtime heads to Canada to bolster Bell’s CraveTV streaming service

TORONTO – CTV boss Phil King is unabashed about whom he’s targeting with a new deal to bring the entire Showtime slate to Canada.

“Netflix got a four-year head start on us in this country and they’re terrific,” King said Tuesday as he trumpeted the arrangement at a joint press conference with Showtime boss David Nevins.

“But, boy, with the content we got from Showtime and some others we think we’re going to (gain by) leaps and bounds.”

King says the long-awaited arrival of the premium U.S. channel will take the form of a branded block on The Movie Network, and there are no plans to expand that to a full-fledged channel.

The focus, instead, is bolstering the content of Bell Media’s streaming service CraveTV, which will benefit from a massive influx of past, present and future Showtime series, including “The Affair,” “Penny Dreadful” and the upcoming “Happyish.”

“The main reasons we did this deal was frankly to get our streaming service going with Crave,” said King, CTV president of sports and entertainment programming.

“Netflix, they may have one or two (new) shows. I just bought 12 from David.”

With buzzy titles like the Emmy-winning marriage drama “The Affair” and genre-busting “Penny Dreadful” garnering traction, King called this the best time to get “on the Showtime train.”

In the past, Bell Media has picked up the channel’s shows a la carte.

The CraveTV deal will showcase the brand in a more cohesive way, while allowing viewers to catch both new and past content each week.

King and Nevins were joined at the announcement by Showtime stars Josh Hartnett of “Penny Dreadful,” Maura Tierney of “The Affair” and Shanola Hampton of “Shameless.”

Nevins called the Canadian plans a “watershed deal,” noting this is the first time the brand will cross the border.

“For a long time it’s been a frustration (that) people don’t realize necessarily that ‘Homeland’ and ‘Ray Donovan’ and ‘Shameless’ are all coming from the same source,” said Nevins.

“I hope that this deal is actually a harbinger of other deals, particularly in English-speaking territories where we can sort of bring the brand as a whole.”

And while he regards the TV channel to be “the bedrock” of Showtime, he considers himself “platform agnostic.”

“If you want to wait for it to come to The Movie Network, great. If you want to watch it on CraveTV, great. I don’t care. As long as you like our stuff.”

The second season of “Penny Dreadful” premieres May 3 on TMN/Movie Central, while “Happyish” will preview Saturday on CTV before beginning its run Sunday on CraveTV.

The first season of “The Affair” is currently streaming on CraveTV while the fifth season of “Shameless” is available on TMN On Demand.

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