Paris and Amsterdam – CANAL+ Group and CBS Corporation announced an exclusive licensing and trademark agreement for SHOWTIME in France. The long-term deal will bring the SHOWTIME brand to France for the first time, along with hundreds of hours of award-winning and critically-acclaimed SHOWTIME original series and future SHOWTIME programming.
CANAL+ Group will now have the exclusive rights for at least 10 current and future series produced by SHOWTIME, making CANAL+ Group the preferred home of SHOWTIME in France. The agreement marks a significant expansion of the SHOWTIME brand in one of Europe’s biggest media markets and will also bring SHOWTIME programming to French-speaking Africa, Switzerland and Monaco.
Included in the agreement are current and upcoming shows such as Golden Globe and Peabody Award-winning Twin Peaks, which is returning after 25 years as a new limited series written by series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch and directed by David Lynch, the Wall Street drama Billions, starring Emmy and Golden Globe winners Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis, and I’m Dying up here , a new drama executive produced by Jim Carrey.
The deal also includes the SHOWTIME library with hundreds of hours of acclaimed series, including Ray Donovan, The Affair, Nurse Jackie, The Borgias, Californication and Dexter. CANAL+ is currently broadcasting the SHOWTIME hit series Homeland in France.
Along with the SHOWTIME agreement in France, CBS Corporation has announced similar significant deals with other partners globally, including Sky UK, Germany and Italy, Bell Canada, Stan Australia and Movistar Spain, in addition to other output partners around the world.