Showtime Movie Channels is a group of Australian

pay-TV Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, but ...

movie channels, available on the Foxtel, Optus and Austar TV platforms. The service consisted of five original channels (showtime premiere, showcase, showtime action, showtime comedy, showtime drama), three HD simulcasts (showtime premiere HD, showcase HD, showtime action HD) and two timeshift channels (showtime two, showcase two). It was owned and operated by the Premium Movie Partnership (PMP), a joint venture in which

Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, ac ...

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primari ...

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...

and

Liberty Global Liberty Global plc is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Plc, Liberty Global B.V. and Liberty Global, Inc., with ...

had equal shares.

Foxtel Foxtel is an Australian pay television company—operating in cable television, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April 2018, superseding an earlier company from 1995. The service was establi ...

took over managing and producing the Showtime channels as of 31 October 2012, with it purchasing assets of the PMP. On 9 December 2012, it was announced that Movie Network and Showtime (with the exception of

Showcase Showcase or vitrine may refer to: *Cabinet (furniture) *Display case Music * ''Showcase'' (Bill Anderson album), 1964 * ''Showcase'' (Patsy Cline album), 1961 * ''Showcase'' (Buddy Holly album), 1964 * ''Showcase'' (Philly Joe Jones album), 1959 ...

) would be replaced with a new line-up of Foxtel branded movie channels to be named

Foxtel Movies ''Foxtel Movies'' is a suite of 11 pay television film channels in Australia which began broadcasting on 1 January 2013. Owned by Foxtel, the channels replaced the now-defunct Movie Network and Showtime suites. History In June 2012, speculat ...

The main competitor to Showtime is Movie Network Channels.

History

Formed in late 1994 through a joint partnership between Australis Media, Columbia TriStar, MCA,

and

Tele-Communications Inc. Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) was a cable television provider in the United States, and for most of its history was controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone. The company was started in 1958 in Bozeman, Montana as Western Microwave, Inc. and Co ...

, Showtime started broadcasting in 1995 as part of the basic package on the now-defunct

Galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

service, showing first-run films. At the same time its sister channel named Encore was launched, showing older 'classic' movies. Until their launch in March 1995, trailers and previews were broadcast in their channel slots. Both channels were originally programmed in

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, w ...

, until local operations commenced in October 1995. It later became available as part of the Austar and Foxtel services when they were launched. In December 2002, the Showtime channels also became available on

Optus Television Optus Television is the cable television division of Australian telecommunications company Optus. History Its immediate predecessor was Optus Vision, a joint venture between Optus and Continental Cablevision, with small shareholdings by me ...

. Encore was renamed Showtime Greats on 1 March 2004, with a move to more contemporary films. In September 2007 it was announced that a premium channel called ''showcase'' would be launched on 1 December 2007 as part of the suite of Showtime channels, ahead of changes that would allow

Movie Network Crave (formerly The Movie Network or TMN) is a Canadian premium television network and streaming service owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of BCE Inc. Launched in 1983 as the national service First Choice, early difficulties and a subsequent ...

to compete directly with Showtime for subscribers. showcase screens movies (mainly independent, arthouse and documentary features),some comedy programs as well as a number of television series. On 15 November 2009, Showtime Greats was replaced by showtime action, showtime comedy and showtime drama. In addition, Showtime was renamed showtime premiere. On 11 October 2012,

announced they would acquire certain assets of the Premium Movie Partnership, which would result in Foxtel managing and producing the Showtime channels as of 31 October 2012.

Channels

All showtime channels area available on

Austar Austar was an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity was subscription television but it has also been involved with internet access and mobile phones. It was founded in 1995 under the name Community Entertainment Tele ...

and

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited (commonly referred to as Optus) is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore, Si ...

, unless otherwise noted. showtime premiere and showcase are also available through

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...

service.

showcase

Showtime Greats

Internet download services

Launched on 1 October 2009 were two exclusive channels to Foxtel Download. These were: * Showtime Family – featured family friendly movies and was exclusive to Foxtel's download service. * Showtime Horror – featured Classic and modern horror movies and was exclusive to Foxtel's download service.

Showtime Australia

Showtime Australia is unrelated to the American

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...

service, but pays a licence fee for the use of the name and trademark. It also produces some Australian movies, such as ''

Bad Eggs ''Bad Eggs'' is a 2003 Australian comedy movie, written and directed by Tony Martin. It stars Mick Molloy, Bob Franklin and Judith Lucy, with Alan Brough, Bill Hunter, Marshall Napier, Nicholas Bell, Steven Vidler, Shaun Micallef, Roby ...

'', in conjunction with other companies.

Trademark and branding

Despite the name being Showtime, for branding purposes it is usually spelt in all capitals to match the channel logo. Similarly, Showcase is usually spelt in all lower case. As a matter of fact, the branding for Showtime uses the former logo from the American cable service until 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Showtime Movie Channels Movie channels in Australia Television channels and stations established in 1995 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2012 Defunct Australian television channels English-language television stations in Australia