LOS ANGELES, NEW YORK -- The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) have announced nominations for outstanding achievement in television, news, radio, promotional writing, and graphic animation during the 2011 season. The winners will be honored at the 2012 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday, February 19, 2012, at simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York.

Showtime’s freshman series Homeland, which films in the Charlotte area, received three nominations including Drama Series, New Series and Episodic Drama.
 
In the Drama category, Homeland will be competing against Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and The Good Wife.  In the New Series category, Homeland is once again joined by Game of Thrones as well as Episodes, The Killing and New Girl.

In the Episodic Drama category, the Homeland's episode of “The Good Solider” was nominated.  The episode was written by Henry Bromell and is competing against episodes from the series Boardwalk Empire and  Breaking Bad –who each received two nominations in the category—and an episode from fellow Showtime drama Dexter.

Homeland has been a success for Showtime.   The premiere episode became Showtime’s highest-rated drama premiere in eight years with a total of 1.33 million viewers.  The show has retained those viewers with subsequent episodes drawing over 1.0 viewers. 

In October, Showtime president David Nevins announced the show had been renewed for a 12-episode second season and has stated that the show’s characters “have long lives” and that the show is one that “will not stand still…maybe in season five it would repeat itself but it (Homeland) has advantages over other shows.”

Homeland has recently completed filming of its first season in the Charlotte Region.  Including its pilot episode, the series has created 150 professional crew jobs and over 3,500 talent opportunities  while having an estimated direct spend in excess of $30,000,000.  The show is from the creative team behind Fox's hit series 24 and stars Claire Danes and Damian Lewis.