Showtime (TV Channel) - Branding

Branding

Showtime's original logo was a generic text logo in Kabel font surrounded by a starfield marquee. This logo was replaced in 1980 by a circular sphere with a television screen inside it (similar in resemblance to the logo used by Brazilian television network Rede Globo, but without a circle in the center of the screen), accompanied by generic "Showtime" text in Avant Garde font. The screen was accompanied by an italic "Showtime" text in Franklin Gothic type with the top left portion of the "T" overlapping the top right portion of the "W" from 1984 to 1990, when the TV screen was dropped and the aforementioned italic text became the channel's logo from that point on until 1997. That year, the current logo was implemented that featured the network's name in a condensed typeface with the 'SHO' prefix imprinted in negative space on a circle (as with Cinemax's highlighting of 'MAX' in their 1997-2011 logo, the use of 'SHO' as the logo focal point comes from the channel's former TV Guide abbreviation in the magazine's local listings era).

Showtime began to brand its programming with digital on-screen graphic logos starting in 1999 (becoming one of the first American premium channels to do so), this originally pertained to only the main Showtime channel and Showtime 2 and was limited to being shown during promo breaks between programs; Showtime shows its logo bug intermittently during regular programming, though the rest of the Showtime channels (most of which including The Movie Channel and Flix, but with the exception of Showtime 2, which was already using a logo bug, did not begin to display on-screen logos until April 1, 2010) run theirs during all of their programming.

Since 2008, Showtime has aired promotions for upcoming programs at the conclusion of films shown on the main channel in primetime as well as during the closing credits of its original series seen on the main Showtime channel, Showtime 2 and Showcase (in the case of its original series, the standard production company credits are replaced with a marginalized credit sequence similar to those used by the major U.S. broadcast networks).