The company was established in 1983 as Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. after Viacom and Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment (now Paramount Media Networks) merged their premium channels, Showtime and The Movie Channel respectively, into one division. In 1984, American Express sold their interest in Warner-Amex to Warner Communications (now Warner Bros. Discovery) making Warner the new half-owner of Showtime/TMC. In 1985, Warner sold its half-interest to Viacom, making the company a wholly owned subsidiary of Viacom. The acquisition was completed on May 20, 1986, along with MTV Networks. It also saw the pay-per-view service Viewer's Choice become part of the operation; it merged with rival PPV service Home Premiere Television in 1988, and Viacom ceded control to the cable companies that owned HPT (Viacom still held a stake until the 1990s). In 1988, the company was renamed Showtime Networks, Inc.[2]
On March 1, 1994, a partnership between Showtime Networks and Home Box Office, Inc. (parent of HBO and Cinemax) implemented a cooperative content advisory system that was initially unveiled across Showtime, The Movie Channel and the HBO properties that would provide specific content information for pay-cable subscribers to determine the suitability of a program for children. The development of the system—inspired by the advisory ratings featured in Showtime and The Movie Channel's respective program guides and those distributed by other participating premium cable services—was in response to concerns from parents and advocacy groups about violent content on television, allowing the Showtime Networks and other services to assign individual ratings corresponding to the objectionable content depicted in specific programs (and categorized based on violence, profanity, sexuality or miscellaneous mature material). Labels are assigned to each program at the discretion of the participating service.[3] A revised system—centered around ten content codes of two to three letters in length—was implemented across the Showtime Networks and Home Box Office services on June 10, 1994.[4]
1 Indicates the channel is still in existence, but currently operates as a basic cable channel. 2 Star Channel was part of Warner Communications' QUBE interactive cable service, and was the precursor to present-day The Movie Channel.
