(Subscribers of Paramount+'s Prime Video add-on also receive access to the East Coast feeds of Showtime's seven multiplex channels.

[3] Showtime was launched on July 1, 1976, on Times-Mirror Cable systems in Escondido, Long Beach, and Palos Verdes, California through the conversion of 10,000 subscribers of the previous Channel One franchise.

[5] The first program to be broadcast on Showtime was Celebration, a concert special featuring performances by Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd, and ABBA.

[4] On March 7, 1978, Showtime became a nationally distributed service when it was uplinked to satellite, becoming a competitor with Time Inc.'s HBO and other pay cable networks.

[7] In 1982, Group W Cable, a subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corporation (which acquired TelePrompTer the previous year), sold its 50% stake in Showtime back to Viacom for $75 million.

[8] In 1982 Showtime broadcast its first made-for-cable movie Falcon's Gold and its first original series and children's program Faerie Tale Theatre.

The Department of Justice had blocked a similar attempt by MCA, Gulf+Western, 20th Century Fox, and Columbia Pictures to create a competing pay service, Premiere, in an antitrust case ruling two years earlier in January 1981.

[13] On January 7, 1983, Viacom International (adding itself as a partner) drafted an amendment to the proposal to consolidate The Movie Channel with Showtime.

However the deal ran into regulatory hurdles because Warner, Universal, and Paramount received 50% of their respective total revenue from film releases and licensing fees from premium services.

[15] The Department's decision–citing concerns, including some expressed by HBO management, that combining the assets of Showtime and TMC would stifle competition in the sale of their programming and that of other pay cable services to cable providers–was despite the fact that under the original proposal, MCA, Gulf+Western and Warner had each agreed to continue licensing films released by their respective movie studios to competing pay television networks.

To address the Justice Department's concerns over the deal, the four partners submitted a revised proposal for consideration on July 19 which included guarantees of conduct agreeing that Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. would not receive higher residual licensing payments for films acquired by Showtime and The Movie Channel than those paid by other studios, and that all four partners would not permit the two channels in the venture to pay lower fees for films produced by three studio partners than those paid by smaller pay television services for the same films.

[16] After the revised proposal was rejected on July 28, Warner Communications and American Express restructured the purchase to include only Viacom as a partner, bowing Gulf+Western and MCA out from the partnership.

[21] On August 10, 1985, after Time Inc. and cable provider Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) jointly submitted a bid to buy the company for $900 million and the assumption of $500 million in debt as well as an earlier offer by American Express the previous month to buy out Warner's share of the company (under a clause in the agreement that allowed either company the option of buying out their partner's stake in Warner-Amex), Warner Communications exercised an option to acquire American Express' 50% share of Warner-Amex Cable Communications for $450 million.

A new slogan, "No Limits" (in reference to the fact that as a premium channel, Showtime could push the boundaries of programming without censorship, as well as offer the type of exciting programming that appealed to subscribers), and a bold red-and-black color scheme was instituted, with promotions and bumpers feature surrealistic imagery; the campaign was created by the newly formed in-house marketing and advertising agency, "Red Group".

[46] In 1991, after HBO and Cinemax debuted the first premium television multiplex service in the United States, Showtime followed with the testing of its own secondary service–Showtime 2–on October 1 of that year.

Films shown on Showtime's HD simulcast feeds are broadcast in their domestic aspect ratio if that version is provided by the studios that maintain pay television distribution rights with the channel.

[41][90] On May 20, 2023, Paramount Global announced that the merger of both services would take place on June 27, with the standalone Showtime app being shut down on April 30, 2024.

[46] Paramount+ with Showtime's programming schedule currently consists largely of theatrically released feature films—which occupy much of the service's daily schedule, varying in quantity depending on channel—and original series targeted at adult audiences (including, as of June 2020[update], dramas like Shameless, Homeland, Yellowjackets, Billions, The Chi, The L Word: Generation Q, and Penny Dreadful: City of Angels; comedies such as Black Monday, Our Cartoon President and Kidding; and docuseries including The Circus and Vice).

[citation needed] Softcore erotica programming has previously aired during the "After Hours" block, though adult films have been absent from Showtime's primary channel since the mid-2000s; the network began broadcasting a limited amount of original erotica series (such as Beach Heat: Miami) on its main channel in 2010, after having been removed for most of the previous decade.

[citation needed] Until the formation of Showtime Family Zone in 2001, Showtime heavily incorporated programming (both American and foreign) aimed at children and teenagers as part of its daytime schedule; in particular, the main channel ran a late afternoon block of teen-oriented series on Sundays (such as Ready or Not, Chris Cross and Degrassi High), as well as a morning block of shows aimed at younger children (such as OWL/TV, A Bunch of Munsch and The Busy World of Richard Scarry) during the early and mid-1990s, and a weekday mid-afternoon and Sunday morning film block called "Showtime Familytime" that ran during the 1980s and 1990s.

Other notable past and present original series include Stargate SG-1 (which ran on Showtime for its first five seasons, before moving to the Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy) for the remainder of its run); Dead Like Me; Californication; Gigolos; Nurse Jackie; The Tudors; Brotherhood; Soul Food; Queer as Folk; The L Word; The Big C; Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

Programs that aired under the Showtime After Hours banner carried either a TV-MA or R rating (usually the former), primarily for strong sexual content and nudity.

The block had often been the subject of both scrutiny in the media and a source of humor in popular culture, with references to Showtime's late night programming being featured in various films and television shows.

As of 2024[update], Showtime–and sister channels The Movie Channel and Flix–maintains exclusive first-run film licensing agreements with Amblin Partners (including releases produced in conjunction with DreamWorks Pictures, which maintains a pay television licensing agreement for its other releases with Showtime rivals HBO and Cinemax, and Participant),[96] A24,[97] and Bleecker Street.

[115][116] On March 5, 1996, Showtime announced a seven-year output deal with Phoenix Pictures (as part of an agreement that also included the purchase of an 11% equity interest), broadcasting titles from that studio released between 1996 and 2002.

On December 4, 2008, Showtime signed a four-year exclusive first-run distribution deal with Summit Entertainment, broadcasting 42 films that were released by that studio between 2009 and 2012.

[127][128] From November 13, 2019 to December 31, 2023, Showtime is the exclusive premium cable broadcaster for films distributed by A24 (excluding titles part of A24's already-existing partnership with Apple Inc.) through an output deal made between the two entities.

[131] In February 2009, mixed martial arts promotion Strikeforce announced a three-year broadcast agreement with Showtime, allowing it to broadcast up to 16 events per year, as well as a deal with sister network CBS for an option to produce up to four events for that network;[132] Strikeforce ended its run on Showtime when the league folded in January 2013.

In 2011, Showtime expanded its MMA programming by televising events produced by M-1 Global,[135] the Russian PTC company of popular Strikeforce fighter Fedor Emelianenko.

[142] Showtime programming is also distributed in selected countries/territories through localized versions of Paramount+, including Australia, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.