Random thoughts: What happened to AMC?

The proliferation of streaming services has really scattered the quality shows. You could say the same thing about the big 4 networks, they used to be the home of Lost, 24, ER, etc. 

The industry changed. AMC came in at a time where scripted cable television was on the rise and they had a strategy of making things that people like HBO had passed on. Mad Men and Breaking Bad were passed on by HBO for instance. But since then there have been new players that are willing to spend more to get shows that AMC would have given the greenlight, television has shifted a little bit to be more IP focused which AMC doesn't have much of, and they don't have the stand alone library support themselves

I personally think it’s because they have shifted focus on launching shows on AMC+. I feel that streaming service is forgotten and people rather take their shows to Netflix, HBO, Paramount, Appletv, Peacock, Prime, Hulu. There are just too many streaming and AMC did a horrible job marketing and adapting to the market. They were doing well when shows would air on their network and a year later get another huge gust of viewers on Netflix and stuff. Now it’s just a streaming network lost in the shuffle and producers know that. They will take their shows to one of the top platforms first.

AMC followed what HBO started. They didn’t revolutionize TV.

Halt and catch fire was great as was Lodge 49 IMO.

>Then came … The Walking Dead. You said it yourself. They landed on a cash cow that would bring in viewers for c****. They still have a few good shows, Interview with the Vampire etc. But striking c**** gold along with the rise of streaming, before it had a catalog big enough sustain a streaming platform on its own, stopped the path they had set up to be a new HBO like cable channel because it would have no longer been viable.

Interview with the Vampire is one of the best shows on TV lol.

They're chugging along pretty well. Currently runnings shows: Interview with a Vampire - been great and they've acquired the rights to the other novels. The Audacity - Seems pretty ambitious Dark Winds - have heard great things The Terror S3 - Glad there giving this another go Mayfair Witches - Really their only show that doesn't seem appealing Walking Dead spinoffs - gotta pay the bills lol

The problem is two fold. Firstly, they have produced a ton of original series over the years, but we just know them for the handful of breakout success like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. The other is that they aren't focused on quality. I think the straw that really broke their back though was The Walking Dead. The show was basically the personal project of Frank Darabont, you know, the guy that directed The Shawshank Redemption. He had a massive vision for the show that would adapt the comics with a pretty compelling narrative arc. Season 1 sets up a lot of things that would pay off over the course of future seasons, and his talent as a director showed in spades throughout. But AMC is run by some incredibly greedy people and lucky people. For season 2, they demanded costs get cut and ended up firing Darabont. For fans of the first season, the subsequent seasons nosedived in quality. But for general audiences, the show remained a massive hit until season 6/7 when the viewership started to decline. In the end, it's final season averaged 1/5 the viewership of season 1. Ultimately, the show made them a TON of money and the spinoffs did well enough to keep the cash flowing even as the main series flagged. So why bother taking a risk on prestige shows like Mad Men or Breaking Bad that require expensive writers rooms, directors, and actors, and are frankly hard to market, when you could just churn out another Walking Dead spinoff series or pickup whatever drama seems marketable?

Pretty standard market pressures. AMC's peak coincided with a broader rise and peak in made-for-television dramas. Even when it was happening, there was a lot of talk about how "this isn't sustainable". Everything runs in cycles, and TV is no exception. The build up and peak of television drama was a race to gather market share. That inherently requires up-front investment, which "the money" are okay with, provided it drives growth. Then we enter the monetization phase, where the money demands a return. Content strategy shifts from creating new ideas to exploiting the IP that was developed during the build-up. Just look at all the spin-offs. Even if some of them turned out great, they're still representative of a broader shift in strategy. They'll continue with this strategy as long as it is profitable. When the financials take a turn for the red, the money will bring in new management and the cycle will repeat.

They spent money trying to get the next prestige tv show, which didn’t happen, than viewership went away from cable which ruined their model.

Went the same way as USA which also had ~~prestige~~ quality TV (Mr. Robot, Suits, Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, etc.)

Streaming happened. It’s why AMC is reduced to airing TNA Impact.

AMC has ‘Interview with the Vampire’ and several other shows based on Anne Rice novels. Interview is very well loved. Seems to me you just aren’t paying attention.

AMC was too reliant on Walking Dead and BCS, and the like many other cable channels the streaming age was not kind to them. AMC+ is a thing, but it's not exactly a contender. I'm glad Dark Winds has worked for them, but the company overall is in an odd spot which made decisions like buying Sentai Filmworks to "leverage the growth of anime in streaming" all the more questionable

Did Vince ever say why Pluribus is not on AMC? I would assume they would get first crack at it but what do I know.

AMC also had Hell on Wheels

After those three shows you mentioned AMC struggled to find another hit and not for lack of trying. Hell on Wheels, Lodge 49, Halt and Catch Fire, etc... I'm sure we all remember (all of us who watched Mad Men or Breaking Bad live) the advertisements for the plethora of random dramas they were trying, but none of them found an audience even when the show was good (Half and Catch Fire is f****** awesome). Even shows like Better Call Saul had low ratings compared to Breaking Bad and saw ratings decline season after season. It is a combination of three things in my mind: 1. Luck - Sometimes you just get a hot streak. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and then Walking Dead was an insane streak, and surely some of that was a keen eye for picking shows but there was also a huge element of luck. Breaking Bad was not an immediate hit, the ratings didn't really explode until season 5 really. 2. It's just really difficult to find a hit. Even a show like Halt and Catch Fire which had great reviews and recognizable lead actors never really found a sustainable audience. 3. Streaming came along and not that many people watch cable at all anymore

I think they became too attached to The Walking Dead universe that they somewhat neglected ambitious prestige, while other companies came in with more money to pursue ambitious projects, and even tolerated the commercial failure of some of them. Suddenly, they were no longer a place where the best original storytellers would pitch a project first (or even fourth or fifth), because Netflix already had volume, HBO had brand recognition, and Apple had a lot of money and patience. People no longer think of AMC as a prestigious house. They think of HBO, FX, and Apple as "boutique houses," even if not everything they do is great; they have built and/or are building a reputation, and that comes at a high price.

Once The Walking Dead came along they forgot they had other TV shows.

AMC was the "prestige" basic cable network and now those shows shifted to streaming. Halt and Catch Fire was also a great show, it is nearing it's 10th year of being off.... but still counts until then lol Interview With the Vampire was also surprisingly good. And NOS4A2.

Saying AMC revolutionized tv is hilarious, really.

Idk I feel you could say the same about even the current big companies. House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Daredevil, Narcos, Stranger Things, 13 Reasons Why, Ozark, and Mindhunter were all running at the same time for Netflix and were all massive hits during their run. Do they have a similar lineup nowadays?

This is the problem with almost every network now. None of them are greenlighting shows anymore. The ones that do get greenlit are mindless gameshows that nobody asked for. When there IS a good show that gets made, we have to wait two years between each 6 episode season. It's too tiring to watch TV now. 90% of the stuff I see on netflix/hbo/disney+ are 5 year old shows.

They came in 8th or 9th in the streaming wars. Now they’re licensing their shows to other services. It seems inevitable they’ll be bought out at some point. I imagine Netflix, Disney, and Max just haven’t gotten AMC down to a reasonable number yet. Netflix seems like the logical fit. HBO has their own brand and Disney has FX.

I preferred its original intent when it was created in the 80's: American Movie Classics.

The Walking Dead was such an insane hit for them (while Breaking Bad/Mad Men have may gotten more critical acclaim, The Walking Dead was always their cash cow) that they shifted their focus to horror.

they are attached to a parent company that embraced a bunch of niche streaming services which didn't really work, so budgets are tight and not many new shows are greenlit.

Agreed OP, back in the day AMC to me was cables version of HBO. I loved so many shows even less popular ones like Preacher and Into the Badlands. I cant think of anything else I have watched on there in the last decade outside of BCS and I currently love Dark Winds that were quality. I do watch some of the Walking Dead spin-offs but a lot of time they are more background noise than anything. I never even finished the original series. It seems like they only put time/money into the Walking Dead universe which to me is kind of dead anyway..

There just isn't the money in cable that there used to be. They can't afford "Mad Men" anymore and even if they could still afford it, they'd never survive if their next "Mad Men" was a massive failure.

Interview with the vampire is the best thing I’ve watched in years. Both seasons are so damn good. And season 3 is coming in June but will be titled The Vampire Lestat. But if you don’t like vampires (gay vampires) you might not like it. But I f****** love it!

Interview with the vampire is some of the best tv in the past few years

Yeah like other said AMC kinda became the Breaking Bad/Walking Dead channel after a while and streaming didn't help them. And speaking of TWD,they really should let the franchise die down it's becoming a bit absurd at this point and the quality took a solid drop a long time ago. They did try other series in between but like 80% of these shows ended up being canceled or having only 1 season.

A lot of people are blaming streaming but IMO the creative team got cocky while also making a ton do stinkers: Scott Gimple ruined TWD and the rating started to drop and at the same time they decided to make 17 spinoffs and just quadruple down on TWD. While at the same time making ratings stinkers like Low Winter Sun, Rubicon, Hell on Wheels, Turn, Halt and Catch Fire (which I loved but let’s be honest, it wasn’t a ratings bonanza). They also shot themselves with The Killing, which was a phenomenon but after not resolving the case in S1, they lost a ton of their audience.

AMC really frosts my banana. All of the adult oriented shows they have put on the air and yet, they still edit movies.

They were ALWAYS problematic. They had plenty of failures and were known to be very stingy with production budgets.

I think it's a comparable situation to GTA Online where they haven't had to think about quality the way they did when they were defining their brand. The Walking Dead became their GTA Online. They had what like 5 spinoffs? All doing well for them. They put all their eggs in the zombie basket because of how massive a hit it was. Early days they wanted to be prestige, made prestige television, then hit the j****** with TWD. Now that that ride is slowing down (is it?) they'll have to find a new identity but there was no real incentive for them to spend millions of dollars on new groundbreaking shows when they had a massive cash cow they could milk instead. 

In addition to what everyone else is saying, AMC has been poorly managed on the financial side. They were caught up in the short/gamma squeeze that GameStop was involved in a few years ago which causes the stock price to skyrocket. The board attempted to capitalized on this by using it as an excuse to dilute the shares to pay off debt. This wasn't enough to right the ship so they have diluted again and again, but the value of the stock during the subsequent dilutions wasn't being propped up by the GameStop craze anymore, so individual stocks are now trading around a dollar and the value of the company has been flat since early 2024. They now have money problems, market problems, consumer spending problems, questionable leadership, and angry investors.

Revolutionized? How so? More like they had a good run with some prestige shows then scored a massive hit with The Walking Dead. Not really revolutionary in any sense

I wonder if selling the distribution rights to Netflix helped or hindered them

They didn't get bought up by a much bigger entertainment company (Disney, Xfinity, Paramount, etc) and didn't have the funds to compete in the streaming world. Reduced income meant reduced budgets and reduced prestige. This made it harder to develop new premium shows. From there it is basically a downward spiral. They're still around because if nothing else, they DO still own the rights to several popular shows. But it's not enough to get people to actually subscribe to AMC+. I literally don't know a single person who subscribes to them.

They got hot right at the peak of cable TV, but the downfall of cable TV was quick and swift and they've had to ride that wave down with it.

I think AMC just doesn’t have the same marketing budget as big streamers — Gangs of London has been a favorite of mine from the network.

AMC was and still very c****. They won’t pay to play, they got very lucky in those years. They still had some good shows after the run. Halt and catch fire was probably my the best show they made after the golden age run.

Well the streaming wars began and AMC was very confident that they could compete in that space with The walking Dead universe, so they put a lot of time and effort into that. Even with the other few good shows that they have, so much of their time and effort and money went into the walking Dead University that now that its overstayed it's welcome they're struggling to find another property or franchise that was as successful to validate AMC plus.

Also, why do they think low-bitrate 720P streaming at Shudder is anything close to OK for a paid streaming service in 2026?!

Franchise fever. Interview with the Vampire is legit phenomenal but they only had two seasons and already created two spinoffs/related shows.

I feel like the fumbled their streaming platform. Paid version, free version and another where you link your TV provider. On top of that some shows had episodes missing or have delayed releases.

Christina Wayne was the VP of Development at AMC who picked up Mad Men, Breaking Bad and was also in charge during the early development of Walking Dead and Hell on Wheels. Then she left. The other members of her team -- Rob Sorcher (left to become chief content officer at Cartoon Network) and Vlad Wolynetz (left to join BBC Worldwide) -- also left around the same time. There are other factors, but I think a lot of it boils down to AMC losing the people who were really good at identifying and developing new shows.

Right before AMC dropped Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc., they had been bought by new (majority?) ownership. Those owners took risks, and let creators do their thing. Also, RIP Rubicon. A great one season!

Lots of people liked Interview with the Vampire. Mayfair witches and Talamasca were mostly panned. But I could imagine a world where all 3 were well written and successful, and AMC was receiving plaudits. Sometimes you hire the right people and things go much better than expected. Sometimes you hire the wrong people and things disappoint.

They went all in with The Walking Dead franchise

It's a cable channel and hardly anyone has cable and satellite anymore. They're not even what they once were, it used to be American Movie Classics

Mad Men only survived because the show runner and staff stood up to AMC and forced them to maintain the budget and keep it going. I enjoyed Breaking Bad though I thought that Gilligan really did more help at times with keeping the show going and avoiding some flat episodes with fairly ordinary twists and plotting, rather than doing it all solo. The Walking Dead had lots of show runner firings notably Darabont who created it. And noticeable budget cuts as it progressed until it was a shadow of it's former self and survives as some mediocre spin offs. Dark Winds S4 is on here next month hopefully that is still of high quality. AMC bought Shudder, and Acorn and have moved into horror and British and antipodean cosy murder mysteries in association with BBC, BBC America and Alibi.

Dark Winds, while better than most things on tv right now, is not in the same class as those other hit AMC theories series.

Read about how they handled The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. One show had over a dozen seasons split between AMC, AMC+, Shudder, Amazon, etc.

I think they are asking the same question. At every meeting.

I wonder if the shift to individual streaming apps hurt them. It was a lot easier to follow what they were putting out when I had basic cable but now I just pay for individual streamers like Netflix and HBO.

I think they genuinely got lucky hitting on 3 shows at the same time. I don’t think the shows were a result of much AMC did, other than not getting in the way.

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I liked Parish Wish they didn’t cancel that

All these top tier shows go to streaming services now. Why go on a network where you can bash a guys eyeball out with a bat, but can't say 'f***'.

Halt and Catch Fire was a great show but it ended in 2017.

streaming really siloes everything. you cant just flip channels you really need to deliberately install an app. no one thinks of amc. it really sucks, distribution and ownership of the shows should be separate. broadcast was a great medium

The Audacity starts on Sunday and has gotten some pretty glowing reviews. Perhaps the comeback is starting. What sucks is that unless I find it on cable, it streams on AMC+, which is not something many people have.

AMC relied on peak TWD and when ratings for it cratered in the later seasons they had nothing else. Plus the collapse of the paid linear TV bundle has slashed the money they have to play around with. AMC has been on sale for ages but no one is interested so it will continue on till it's cash reserves empty and it goes into insolvency. AMC is currently worth less than an eighth what it was just 5 years ago at less than $350M.

AMC lost me when they fucked up *The Walking Dead*... never cared what AMC was peddling after that.

They don't have the money to compete.

The abandonment of cable for streaming has reduced every studio's "built-in-audience", so they slashed budgets, cancelled everything that wasn't an instant hit and turned to c**** c*** like reality-tv. Apple+ & Amazon Prime didn't do this because they didn't have legacy audiences from cable.

Nowadays tv shows are chasing a global audience. They do press tours in a bunch of cities around the world like for blockbuster movies. No way AMC can afford that. Also the standard now to get eyeballs is to have movie stars in your tv shows. AMC can’t afford that either. 

I think its important to understand that the economics of making TV has drastically shifted over the last 2 decades... First executives found out that they could make millions by having a small film crew follow people around with the big reality tv boom in the early 2010s, Soon after that with how popular Youtube got, youtube studios and creators were putting out amazing short and longform content that in holiwood would have been worth millions, and they were doing it for significantly less money as they didn't have to deal with any of the big film unions. Then in the last 10-15 years or so with Netflix, and soon after other studios stepping in and adding original content to their streaming platforms, there is suddenly a lot of competition for talent that simply didn't exist 10-15 years ago. All while at the same time, executives appetites for big budgets have dried up significantly...

ran out of fresh ideas? plus if you watch on PC like I do you may experience stream crashes with extra commercials each restart.

FX been whoopin em for a decade+