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David Nevins Leaving Paramount Global After 12 Years At The Helm Of Showtime

Nellie Andreeva
·6 min read

David Nevins has stepped down as Chairman and CEO, Paramount Premium Group and Chief Creative Officer, Paramount+ Scripted Series. He just made the announcement internally in a memo, a copy of which was obtained by Deadline (read it below). He will be departing at the end of the year.

Nevins’ decision comes three years after the completion of the Viacom-CBS merger. The longtime Showtime Chairman and CEO had been rising in the ranks since then, adding oversight of BET, Paramount+’s scripted originals and Paramount Television Studios. A respected veteran TV executive, he was part of the senior Paramount leadership under CEO Bob Bakish. With multiple executives having a say over Paramount+ and calls often being made by a committee, there has been some frustration over the decision-making process at the company. There also had been chatter about a move to consolidate some of the operations under Bakish.

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RELATED: Paramount Parcels Out David Nevins Turf To Chris McCarthy, George Cheeks And Tom Ryan; CEO Bob Bakish Hails “Invaluable” Run By Departing Exec

Showtime Networks now will move under Chris McCarthy, while George Cheeks will take oversight of BET and Paramount TV Studios. Showtime’s OTT team will move into Paramount Streaming under Tom Ryan, a process that already had been in exploratory stages.

“As we begin this new chapter, I want to once again thank David for his invaluable contributions to our company,” Bakish said in his company memo today.

Nevins’ departure comes with Showtime at a high, having just scored a slew of Emmy nominations for its new breakout hit Yellowjackets. It is a nice bookmark for Nevins’ decorated tenure at Showtime that began with Emmy winner Homeland, a series he brought to the network through his relationships he had cultivated during his tenure at Imagine Television.

At Paramount+, Nevins’ team was responsible for hit Halo, which had been developed at Showtime. Of the slate of upcoming scripted originals on the streamer, Nevins has been particularly effusive about Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies as well as the Fatal Attraction series reboot.

Nevins’ 12 years at CBS/ViacomCBS/Paramount Global also included a two-year stint as Chief Creative Officer for CBS. He was the highest-level executive at the company to come out of the creative side of the business.

“So why now?,” Nevins wrote in the email. “Quite simply, over the past several months I’ve come to the conclusion that I am ready for the next phase of my life and my career. The industry is transforming rapidly, and I am genuinely excited about what the future holds. Most importantly, the leadership team led by Jana Winograde, Gary Levine, Scott Mills and Nicole Clemens are more than ready. The 2023 slate is set, and I believe the coming year’s schedules from Showtime, BET, and Paramount Television Studios are going to be the most ambitious and exciting group of shows we’ve ever put out in a single year. I can’t wait to watch it happen.”

Here is the full memo:

Dear Team,

I am writing this morning, so you hear the news from me that I’ve made the decision that the time is right for me to step down from my post atop the premium group at the end of the year.

The good news is that it’s not immediate and I’ll be helping to figure out the details of the transition.

I am tremendously grateful for the past 12 years and the varying positions I’ve held at this company. It has truly been one of the great joys of my life to get to do what I love to do with all of you. Together, we’ve accomplished an enormous amount. Year after year, we’ve managed to make and launch shows that defined the zeitgeist, that excited, delighted, and moved our audiences, and that received adulation and awards from our peers.

Love of good storytelling, being excellent, showing up and being passionate about what you do, that is what all of you have brought to the table day in and day out. When I spent a year abroad in Glasgow during college, I studied film for the first time and the kids there truly could only dream of being able to tell stories on such a grand scale to a world-wide audience. I realized the great privilege of being American was that after graduating I could take my grandmother’s old Buick, drive to LA and give the dream a shot — no green card required. And you all have helped make that dream a reality.

Most of all, I’m so proud of the team we’ve put together. To those of you who predate my arrival, to those of you who have joined in the past decade and to those of you who I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with only since the merger: thank you. We’ve built a culture of integrity, respect, collaboration, and risk-taking creativity. Together we’ve transformed our entire business model over the past few years. And we’ve been able to attract some of the most talented creative people on the planet to come work with us.

I am also immensely thankful for the support of Bob and Shari as well as my colleagues on Bob’s leadership team. Their personal commitment to the success of this company and the achievement of our individual goals are what you can only hope for from your leadership.

So why now? Quite simply, over the past several months I’ve come to the conclusion that I am ready for the next phase of my life and my career. The industry is transforming rapidly, and I am genuinely excited about what the future holds. Most importantly, the leadership team led by Jana Winograde, Gary Levine, Scott Mills and Nicole Clemens are more than ready. The 2023 slate is set, and I believe the coming year’s schedules from Showtime, BET, and Paramount Television Studios are going to be the most ambitious and exciting group of shows we’ve ever put out in a single year. I can’t wait to watch it happen.

Know that I will be here during this transition to support each of you to the best of my ability. I very much look forward to our continued relationships because at root that’s what’s best about working in this industry: the relationships we build with each other. That and the sheer joy of serving our audiences with stories that glue them to their screens.

Thanks to all of you.

David

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