AMC Networks, the company behind cable channel brands such as AMC, IFC and Sundance TV, as well as streaming services such as AMC+, Acorn TV and horror streamer Shudder, saw a 10% drop in advertising revenue in the third quarter. It was reported that the total amount was $133 million. Friday. “Although viewership ratings are declining linearly and the advertising market is challenging, this is partially offset by growth in digital advertising and advanced advertising revenues,” the report said.
Affiliate revenue for the quarter fell 13% to $164 million, “primarily due to a decline in underlying subscribers.”
After two consecutive quarters of decline, the company returned to growth in streaming subscribers in the third quarter of last year, adding about 200,000 users in the latest quarter to the end of September, increasing total subscribers. The number of subscribers was 11.8 million (the number of subscribers was 11.6 million as of the end of June). .
AMC’s original series in the third quarter included The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol, starring Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride; Season 4 of the dystopian Snowpiercer starring Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs. and Orphan Black: Echoes with Krysten Ritter and Keeley Hawes.
The company, led by CEO Christine Dolan, has leaned toward data-driven audience targeting in its ad purchases as marketing dollars continue to shift from terrestrial TV networks to ad inventory run by streaming platforms. “This is a huge opportunity to finally swing the pendulum back from digital-first to traditional TV and digital co-buying to support advertisers’ efforts,” Dolan said earlier this year.
On Friday, she said: “As we manage this business in a complex and changing environment, we remain focused on our key strategic pillars: programs, partnerships and profitability.During this quarter, we We have made great progress in all areas.”
Mr Dolan added: “We have also entered into new and enhanced partnerships with leading companies such as Charter, Netflix and Amazon, as we continue to provide our customers with distinctive, high-quality programming across our expanding platform. We are moving forward.”
In late August, the company partnered with Netflix to make previous seasons of 15 AMC series available on Netflix for U.S. subscribers over the next year. Mr. Dolan said the company is “performing well on this massive streaming platform,” with shows such as “Dark Winds” and Anne Rice’s “Mayfair Witches” ranking in Netflix’s top 10 viewing charts. I’m very satisfied with that.” Rights to The Walking Dead universe will return to AMC Networks in about two years.
As for its strategy of licensing content rather than keeping it on its own platforms, executives said AMC+ is “likely a catch-up service for linear networks” and that the company plans to bring new seasons and current seasons there. He said that his priority is to place it in
Executives say the second season of “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon” will be available to stream exclusively on AMC+, and acquisition activity related to the show has doubled since season 1 became available on Netflix compared to AMC+. He said it was more than that. Since Season 1 of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire became available on Netflix, AMC+’s acquisitions for Season 2 have increased “nearly 4x from its pre-Netflix baseline.”
“We are increasingly focused on non-exclusive deals that allow us to monetize content multiple times on multiple platforms, whether it’s ours or our partners, and often both. We’re actually doing this very carefully to make sure that we’re protecting the value of our content by keeping the premieres and new seasons.” CEO Kim Kelleher said this at a financial results conference.
The company has also partnered with Amazon to offer AMC+ and other targeted streaming services on Prime Video channels and 15 AMC FAST channels.
After launching its own ad-supported tier, Dorland said the company plans to offer more ad-supported services.
“Our presence on FAST and the ad-supported version of AMC+ released last year will help us navigate the transition away from linear and emphasize the importance of cross-platform purchasing to reach our target audience. We plan to release an ad-supported version of AMC+ and other targeted streaming services, including Shutter,” Dolan said.
“Even in a time of turmoil and uncertainty for many in our industry, we continue to see the benefits of our scale, independence, and position as one of the last pure-play premium programmers. I want to say that there is,” Dolan said. “We are committed to our platform, Comcast, Charter, Netflix, Amazon, Roku, YouTube, Samsung, Vizio, Philo, We can work with anyone to reach and serve your audience on a wide range of partner platforms, including: We are agile, opportunistic, and high-quality to drive audiences and pop culture In today’s new environment, content is at the center of everything we do. We also reoriented the company, and our employees broke away from the old ways of doing things and adopted a fast-moving, forward-thinking mindset typical of startups and traditional media companies. This new approach is what we need at this moment in media.”
