Sex and more sex: ‘Gigolos’ on Showtime in April
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Reaffirming its love of escorts, Showtime is set to premiere ‘Gigolos,’ a new eight-part reality series about male gigolos working in Las Vegas, which will make its debut April 7, following ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl.’ Sorry, dude from ‘Hung,’ you’ve got some competition.
During the semiannual Television Critics Assn. press tour in January, Showtime’s entertainment president, David Nevins, told journalists that the network wanted ‘late-night adult shows featuring sex’ to be part of Showtime’s programming. He said he embraced that sex was ‘part of what we offer.’
‘We are a pay cable service,’ Nevins said, ‘and I think it’s about doing things with some depth and sophistication and taking people places they couldn’t go on other networks.’
Which doesn’t mean he’s only serious about the racy stuff: Already, Nevins is developing ‘Homeland,’ a ‘true psychological thriller,’ starring Clare Danes as a CIA agent, and a ‘Hard Knocks’-style series about the San Francisco Giants. But with NBC readying ‘Playboy’, we predict that there will soon be a whole lot of tiny sequined undergarments out there on TV.
-- Melissa Maerz
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With ‘The Kennedys’ Out And Gigolos In, It’s Showtime For David Nevins
Jan. 15 2011 - 2:33 am | 550 views | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
By LACEY ROSE
Nevins Looks to Put his Mark on Showtime - Image via Wikipedia
When David Nevins took over as chief of entertainment at Showtime last summer, the premium cable network was hardly in the kind of shambles an executive shake-up typically entails.
Much the opposite, Nevins’ predecessor Bob Greenblatt, who will soon take the helm at NBC, left the HBO competitor as it was growing both its ratings and subscribers. In addition to critical acclaim for series like Weeds, Nurse Jackie and The Big C, profit had grown more than 20% for the year.
To leave be a successful strategy that draws heavily on strong and often morally ambiguous female leads (see Laura Linney, Edie Falco, Toni Collette) could have been Nevins’ strategy. After all, that formula has helped lift Showtime’s base to nearly 19 million subscribers, up some 35% over the last five years, according to research firm SNL Kagan. But relying on momentum doesn’t appear to be Nevins’ style.
“It’s sort of a luxury to come in with [a healthy schedule and] shows that are working,” he tells reporters gathered for the Television Critics Association semiannual press tour Friday. “With that said, I think healthy networks that want to be on the cutting edge need to be in the constant state of renewal and reinvention, and I think that we are sort of continuing with our shows that are working and trying to expand out from there.”
From the look of it, Nevins, whose recent television credits as a producer include Friday Night Lights, 24 and Parenthood, isn’t simply paying lip service to the importance of expansion. Already, he’s made good on his promise to diversify the Showtime slate, readying a “true psychological thriller” starring a CIA agent Clare Danes called Homeland, and a Hard Knocks-esque MLB show devoted to the on-and-off field workings of World Series winner, the San Francisco Giants.