Gary Levine has been named president of programming at Showtime Networks, where he will now add responsibility for casting and program operations to his previous duties, the development and creative oversight of the network's original series, documentaries and specials across all platforms.

Levine joned Showtime as executive VP of original programming in 2001, in his new position, he will continue continue reporting to David Nevins, president of Showtime Networks.

"Gary has been an integral part of building Showtime Networks' stellar original programming brand," Nevins said. "He also happens to be one of the most respected creative executives in the business because he knows how to bring out the best in everyone who works with him. Gary has proven to be an invaluable creative partner to me since the day I arrived at Showtime. I am confident that in his expanded role he will lead our programming team to outstanding new heights."

Showtime's originals include series Homeland, The Affair, Ray Donovan, Shameless and Masters of Sex, as well as a batch of movies and documentaries.

Prior to joining Showtime, Levine was president of Internet entertainment company Icebox. Previously, he headed development at Warner Brothers Television, Witt-Thomas Productions and ABC (drama).

Read mroe at broadcastingcable.com.

Showtime has renewed drama series Ray Donovan and Masters Oof Sex for fourth seasons, the network announced during its Television Critics Association Tour session Tuesday.

Both Donovan and Sex, which are currently in the middle of their third season runs, will return next year with 12 additional episodes, the network said.

“Both Ray Donovan and Masters Of Sex are signature series for Showtime,” said David Nevins, president of Showtime in a statement. “They are emblematic of what Showtime stands for – quality, premium programming that you cannot find anywhere else on television.  We’re so proud to continue offering both series across all our platforms.”

In other Showtime TCA news:

-- The network has ordered a one hour comedy pilot from executive producer Jim Carrey focusing on the 1970’s L.A. comedy scene dubbed I’m Dying Up Here, as well as an untitled, coming of age drama executively produced by Lena Waithe (Dear White People) and Common (Selma).

--Showtime will air in November The Spymasters, which will feature interviews with all 12 living directors of the Central Intelligence Agency

--Showtime will air in November The Spymasters, which will feature interviews with all 12 living directors of the Central Intelligence Agency. It also set a Sept. 26 date for the premiere of its documentary American Dream/American Knighrtmare chronicling the live of rap mogul Suge Knight.

--The pay TV service will develop performer Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids to develop into a limited series and will chronicle the comback from injury of NFL star Victor Cruz in a fall Showtime Sports documentary I Am Giant: Victor Cruz.

--The network will debut on Jan. 17 freshman series Billions as well as the sixth season of Shameless. The network also released a trailer for Billions, which appears below. 

Showtime today has posted free samples of the third-season premieres of series Ray Donovan and Masters Of Sex on multiple platforms ahead of their debut on Showtime on Sunday, July 12, starting at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Viewers can sample the TV-14 rated premieres of Ray Donovan and Masters Of Sex for free now on YouTube and SHO.com. The new season premieres can also be accessed via select television providers’ free on-demand channels and websites, on Showtime On Demand and various partner sites and applications. The episodes also will be available via Showtime Anytime on desktop, iPhone, iPad,  Android phones and tablets, Kindle Fire, Roku players, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Apple TV streaming players anywhere in the U.S., as well as for download as a free video podcast on iTunes, Showtime said in a release. They will also be available on the Showtime Preview app on Smart TVs from Samsung, LG and Panasonic.

Ray Donovan stars Liev Schreiber as L.A.’s best professional fixer, the man called in to make the city’s celebrities, superstar athletes, and business moguls’ most complicated and combustible situations go away. Season three finds Ray adrift from his family and those closest to him, while he focuses on his business and desires to be his own boss. Meanwhile, his father Mickey (Jon Voight), who had narrowly escaped last season's heist debacle, finds himself charting a similar course to build his own empire.  Joining the show this season are guest stars Ian McShane and Katie Holmes, with Elliott Gould returning. The cast also includes Paula Malcomson, Eddie Marsan, Dash Mihok, Steven Bauer, Katherine Moennig, Pooch Hall, Kerris Dorsey and Devon Bagby. A Showtime production, the series is executive produced by David Hollander, Mark Gordon and Bryan Zuriff, and created by Ann Biderman. 

Starring Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan as real-life pioneers of human sexuality, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, Masters Of Sex chronicles their unusual lives, romance and pop-culture trajectory, Showtime said in the release. Masters and Johnson’s research touched off the sexual revolution and took them from a mid-western teaching hospital in St. Louis to the cover of Time magazine. Season three of the series is set in 1966 when Masters and Johnson are dealing with the glare of the national spotlight as their sex study is finally unveiled. Their work will have a profound impact on contemporary relationships, especially their own evolving three-way “marriage” with Masters’ wife Libby (Caitlin FitzGerald). The series also stars Annaleigh Ashford. Guest stars this season include Josh Charles, Allison Janney, Beau Bridges, Tate Donovan and Sarah Silverman. The series is an adaptation of Thomas Maier's book Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, The Couple Who Taught America How To Love.  Masters Of Sex was developed for television by Michelle Ashford (The Pacific) who also serves as an executive producer. The series is executive produced by Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, Amy Lippman and Judith Verno. Dave Flebotte serves as co-executive producer. Michael Sheen, Tammy Rosen and Thomas Maier serve as producers. Masters Of Sex is produced by Sony Pictures Television. 

Cable networks took home the lion’s share of NAMIC Vision Awards, the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity In Communications announced Wednesday.

ESPN, Lifetime, OWN and Showtime each won two awards to lead all television networks, according to NAMIC. The Vision Awards, which honor achievements in original programming diversity across multiple platforms, were awarded in 16 programming categories.

Among the winners were Showtime’s Masters of Sex as best drama, with Michael Kenneth Williams winning the best performance in a drama series award for his role in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

Lifetime’s Devious Maids was the winner in the best comedy category with actors Raúl Castillo (HBO’s Raúl Castillo: Looking) and Don Cheadle (Showtime’s House Of Lies) tying for best comedy performance.

Also tying in the "Original Movie or Special" category were CNN’s Documented and Lifetime’s The Trip to Bountiful.

An awards gallery featuring :60 second clips of the winning programs in each of the 16 categories can be viewed by visiting http://namicvisionawards.com

“Congratulations are extended to all of the 2015 NAMIC Vision Award winners,” said Raquel Williams, president, NAMIC – Southern California and director, Distribution, Crown Media Family Networks in a statement. “Since the awards’ inception in 1994, NAMIC – Southern California in collaboration with NAMIC National has remained committed to this initiative with the shared goal of fostering programming diversity. As the creation of multiethnic and culturally relevant content expands, we look forward to continuing the legacy of recognizing those within our industry for their achievements in advancing diversity across all digital platforms.”

The complete winners list for the 2015 NAMIC Vision Awards is as follows:

ANIMATION
Doc McStuffins – Disney Junior

BEST PERFORMANCE – COMEDY (Tie)
Raúl Castillo - Raúl Castillo: Looking – HBO

Don Cheadle - House of Lies – Showtime Networks Inc.

BEST PERFORMANCE – DRAMA
Michael Kenneth Williams - Boardwalk Empire – HBO

CHILDREN’S
Nick News with Linda Ellerbee – Nickelodeon

COMEDY
Devious Maids – Lifetime

DIGITAL MEDIA – SHORT FORM
Music Choice Chronicles Fat Joe – Music Choice

DOCUMENTARY
Tanning of America: One Nation Under Hip Hop – VH1

DRAMA
Masters of Sex – Showtime Networks Inc.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE
MTV Agents of Change, Making the Switch – Viacom International Media Networks

LIFESTYLE
Rev Run’s Sunday Suppers – Cooking Channel

NEWS / INFORMATIONAL
Oprah’s Master Class: Cicely Tyson – OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network

ORIGINAL MOVIE OR SPECIAL (Tie)
Documented – CNN
The Trip to Bountiful – Lifetime

REALITY
Welcome to Los Vargas – NBC Universo

REALITY – SOCIAL ISSUES
Helping in Haiti – ESPN

SPORTS
Marquis Goodwin: The Blueprint – E:60/ESPN

VARIETY / TALK SHOW
Oprah Prime: Pharrell Williams – OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network

Showtime will bow the third-season debuts of top series Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex on June 12.

The shows will make their linear debuts that night at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) and 10 p.m., respectively, launching the first of a dozen, one-hour installments apiece.

Hollywood fixer skein Ray Donovan ranks as Showtime's highest-rated freshman series ever, and averaged 5.3 million weekly viewers across varied platforms and airings during its sophomore year. The Liev Schrieber- and Jon Voight-starrer earned two Golden Globe wisn and multiple Emmy nominations.  

Season three finds Ray (Schrieber) adrift from his family and those closest to him, while he focuses on his business and desires to be his own boss.  Meanwhile, his father Mickey (Voight, in his Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe-winning role), who had narrowly escaped last season's heist debacle, finds himself charting a similar course to build his own empire.  Ian McShane and Katie Holmes join  the show as guest stars.

For its part, Masters of Sex (pictured), averaged 3.4 million weekly viewers in its second season. It collected five Emmy nods and was named one of AFI’s Top Ten Television Programs of the Year.

The show's third campaign is set in 1966 and William Masters (Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominee Michael Sheen) and  Virginia Johnson (Emmy-nominated Lizzy Caplan) must deal with the glare of the national spotlight following the unveiling of their sex study. It’s the start of the Sexual Revolution — and their work will have a profound impact on contemporary relationships, especially their own evolving three-way “marriage” with Masters’ wife Libby (Caitlin FitzGerald).

Showtime’s The Affair has some legs – not to mention other body parts.

The premium network’s new original show registered the best-ever live + 3-day bump for a series debut.  

Starring Dominic West, Maura Tierney and Ruth Wilson, The Affair’s Oct. 12 premiere at 10 p.m. garnered 507,000 live+same-day viewers, according to Nielsen. Gauged on a live+3 basis, the bow tacked on another 285,000 watchers to reach 792,000, a 56% jump. Showtime officials said that was the live+3 lift for any of its series’ debuts.

Similarly, The Affair improved significantly on its premiere night: the 809,000 for live+same-day rose 51% on live+3 measure, tacking on 412,000 watchers, bringing Sunday-night total to 1.22 million. The live+3 edge was tops for a Showtime series debut, according to network officials.

The amelioration by The Affair underscores the nation's predilection toward more delayed viewing: the fifth season live + same-day premiere of AMC's The Walking Dead scored the largest audience for a cable drama in history with some 17.3 million watchers, before another 5 million were counted via the live+ 3 measurement.  

Counting the live+3 adds, The Affair accumulated 1.68 million linear viewers for the show’s Sunday-night opening.  However, when on-demand and Showtime Anywhere views from authenticated platforms are accounted for, the tally reaches 2.5 million – and counting.  

Through Thursday, Oct. 16, The Affair’s on-demand action had already surpassed that of Penny Dreadful by 6%, Masters of Sex by 9% and Ray Donovan by 24% to become Showtime’s rookie series performer in that regard.

Gauged on authenticated platforms only, Showtime said The Affair’s pilot was 90%, 130% and 140% greater than the bows of Penny Dreadful, Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex, respectively.

Showtime drama series Ray Donovan garnered its highest ratings in series history during its Sunday night season two finale, Showtime reported Monday.

The series' season two final episode drew 2 million viewers during its 9 p.m. premiere airing, outperforming the 1.2 million viewers generated for the season two premiere episode and the 1.4 million viewers for the 2013 season one finale, said network officials.

Overall with replays, the Ray Donovan season two finale drew 2.52 million viewers, topping the season two premiere night by 43% and the season one finale by 21%, according to Showtime. Ray Donovan now ranks third among all Showtime original series behind Homeland and Shameless, averaging 5 million weekly viewers per week across platforms.

Following Ray Donovan, the season two finale of Masters Of Sex drew 889,000 viewers, outperforming the season two premiere telecast by 8%, but it fell short of the 1.2 million viewers the season one finale averaged last December.  Overall, Masters Of Sex averaged 2.7 million subscribers (77% of its weekly audience) after its original weekly Sunday airings, said Showtime.

Beverly Hills, Calif. — Nearly one week after his predecessor, NBC Entertainment chairman and former Showtime chief Bob Greenblatt complained during the TCA summer press tour of the advantages held by cable networks, Showtime Networks president David Nevins acknowledged enjoying an edge in certain areas over his broadcast competitors when it comes to programming.

“It’s one of the luxuries of where I sit,” Greenblatt said Friday, responding to a question during his press tour executive session about planning the end of long-running series well in advance. “You’re less buffeted by market forces [than in broadcast]. It’s less about we’re losing revenue in that time period that we could be making through higher ratings.”

On Sunday, Greenblatt said that cable networks can “go into subject matter that just feels cooler” than what broadcast can do. Nevins talked Friday about being able to experiment with portrayals of sex on shows like Masters of Sex and the upcoming The Affair.

“I think it’s really interesting that we can get into that certain side of humanity and human relationships with a depth that’s hard to do in broadcast media, because there’s such squeamishness about sex,” Nevins said. He also noted that he anticipates Showtime doing more documentary series along the lines of the recent Years of Living Dangerously. “That kind of programming, that sort of deep-dive, long series to look at something, I definitely think it’s a good form of programming for us,” Nevins said, adding, “I think it’s one of the things that we can do in pay cable, go with depth into a difficult subject that’s probably not cut out for broadcast television.”

Nevins addressed the issue of Emmy categories, and the network’s decision to submit Shameless, formerly entered in drama categories, as a comedy.

“I don’t envy the TV category trying to categorize,” Nevins said. “I think there’s always a degree of arbitrariness.” He defended the decision to move Shameless, saying producer John Wells “always wanted it to be a comedy.”

Nevins added later, when discussing miniseries and anthology series, “I think we all cry foul when True Detective takes up two best actor slots.”

Other highlights from the panel included:

*Nevins said that the status of Happyish, the comedy series that had been slated to star Philip Seymour Hoffman before the actor’s death in February, is undecided but that the project could still continue. “I’m now sitting on five scripts from [creator Shalom Auslander] that I think are brilliant,” he said. “If I can cast it the right way, it’s something I’ll probably make it. But there’s no guarantees.”

*Asked whether Microsoft’s decision to close Xbox Studios would affect plans for the Halo series, based on the videogame, that Showtime and Microsoft are partnering on, Nevins said, “I don’t think so.” He added that conversations with Microsoft around Halo “are ongoing.”

*Regarding the possibility that Showtime would invest in scripted miniseries or anthology series, as FX has done with Fargo and American Horror Story and HBO has done with True Detective, Nevins said, “I’m fundamentally focused on renewable assets where we can bring it back.” But, he added, “ I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Looking to touch a bit of marketing intimacy for the second-season return of its Masters Of  Sex drama, Showtime has collaborated with director Tatia Pilieva (“First Kiss”) on her second social experiment shot, titled “Undress Me.”

In the video, 20 strangers, paired into couples from various ethnic backgrounds, ages and sexual orientations, strip each other’s clothes--  and perhaps their emotions -- and get into bed together.

Structured similarly to the groundbreaking research by Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson in 1957, the black and white film celebrates intimacy, shedding light on human sexuality. You can check out the video here: http://s.sho.com/UndressMe.

Starring Golden Globe  nominee Michael Sheen and Emmy nominee Lizzy Caplan as William Masters and Virginia Johnson, Masters of Sex returns to Showtime for its second campaign on Sunday, July 13 at 10 p.m. (ET/PT), chronicling the unusual lives, romance and pop culture trajectory of these real-life pioneers of the science of human sexuality.

Tatia Pilieva achieved mass recognition for her short video “First Kiss,” which has garnered over 85 million views on YouTube, and features 10 couples who meet for the first time and kiss on camera. “Undress Me” marks the second iteration of Pilieva’s experimental film series, taking couples to the next level of intimacy and observing the raw reactions of real-life romance when strangers disrobe for the first time.

Showtime is letting viewers celebrate the Fourth of July weekend with marathon airings of two of its top original series -- ahead of their sophomore-season debuts later this month.

The premium network is looking to build awareness and score a ratings bang for Masters of Sex, which stars Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominee Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan as real-life pioneers of human sexuality, William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Its rookie run will repeat on Friday, July 4 and Saturday July 5.

On Sunday, July 6, Showtime returns to the first campaign of Ray Donovan, led by Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Liev Schreiber as LA’s best professional fixer, the man called in to make the city’s celebrities, superstar athletes, and business moguls’ most complicated and combustible situations go away.  Ray's life is complicated greatly when his father Mickey, Golden Globe-winner Jon Voight, gets out of jail and looks to set up shop in the City of the Angels.

For a complete list of replay dates and times, visit: www.sho.com/marathon

Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex, which will make their second-season linear debuts on July 13 at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., respectively, are also available on Showtime on Demand and the network's authenticated TV Everywhere platform, Showtime Anytime.

For a preview of Ray Donovan season two, which averaged 5.7 million watchers in its first go-round across myriad platforms click:  http://s.sho.com/1pmOsWW.

You can check out a preview of season two of Masters of Sex, which tallied 4.8 miillion weekly watchers, at: http://s.sho.com/masterstrailer.