AMC (TV channel)
AMC is an American cable television channel that, since 2002, mainly airs a mix of original AMC shows, mostly dramas and documentaries, as well as acquired TV programs, and theatrically released films. Launched in late 1984 as American Movie Classics, the flagship namesake property of AMC Networks, the channel aired classic films, similar to Turner Classic Movies, the channel's former rival. In 2002, AMC retired the American Movie Classics name, resulting from the major shift in its programming.
As of December 2024, AMC was available in approximately 60 million U.S. pay-TV households. This marks a decline from 65.1 million households in December 2023 and 94.8 million in July 2015, reflecting the broader trend of cord-cutting and the shift toward streaming platforms.
History
1984–2002: Focus on classic films
American Movie Classics, as AMC was originally known, debuted on October 1, 1984, as a premium channel by Rainbow Programming Services. Its original format focused on classic movies – largely those made prior to the 1970s – that aired during the afternoon and early evening hours in a commercial-free, generally unedited, uncut, uninterrupted and uncolorized format. The new network replaced Montage, a channel with a similar format that was being offered to Cablevision subscribers in the New York area.In 1985, Rainbow became involved in a dispute with Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System over broadcast rights to the MGM/UA film library. On July 30 of that year, Rainbow had paid $45 million to license up to 800 pre-1950 films from the library. Weeks later, Turner announced an agreement to purchase the film studio with the intention of airing the films on his Superstation WTBS. Rainbow claimed it had exclusive basic cable rights to the films for the next five years. Despite its widespread cable carriage, Turner claimed that because WTBS was a broadcast station, the restriction did not apply. This led to both companies filing lawsuits against each other in September, and MGM/UA terminating the agreement with Rainbow after alleging that Rainbow had breached it by announcing its intention to offer a premium tier to the AMC cable service. By October, the lawsuit was settled. Rainbow received $50 million and agreed to terminate the licensing deal on December 31, 1985, before which time AMC would not be allowed to convert to a basic service. Turner completed the acquisition of MGM in early 1986, but his ownership was short-lived and he sold it back to the previous owner months later. However, he retained the film library and executed his original plan to air the movies on WTBS and later on his new networks Turner Network Television and Turner Classic Movies, a direct competitor to AMC.
The new movie network struggled to gain carriage. By March 1986, it had only 300,000 subscribers. To solve this problem, Cablevision and CBS worked out a deal with the nation's largest cable television provider, Tele-Communications Inc.. TCI gained a one-third interest in AMC and in exchange made AMC available as an offering for most of its 3.9 million subscribers.. During its early years, it was not uncommon for AMC to host a marathon of Marx Brothers films, or show classics such as the original 1925 release of The Phantom of the Opera. In 1987, the channel began to be carried on the basic cable tiers of many cable providers. In July 1988, AMC added its first original programming: Classic Stories From Classic Stars, followed later that year by Star Facts and a mini-documentary series Making of a Classic. By 1989, AMC was available to 39 million subscribers in the U.S.
On December 1, 1990, AMC began operating on a 24-hour-a-day schedule.
Beginning in 1993, AMC presented an annual Film Preservation Festival to raise awareness of and funding for film preservation. Coordinated with The Film Foundation, an industry group that was founded by acclaimed director Martin Scorsese, the festival was originally conceived as a multi-day marathon presenting rare and previously lost films, many airing for the first time on television, along with behind-the-scenes reports on the technical and monetary issues faced by those engaged in archival restoration. Portions of the festival were often dedicated to all-day marathons focusing on a single performer. During its fifth anniversary year in 1998, Scorsese credited the Festival for creating "not only a greater awareness, but more of an expectation now to see restored films." In 1996, curator of the Museum of Modern Art Mary Lee Bandy called the Festival "the most important public event in support of film preservation." By its tenth anniversary in 2003, the Festival had raised $2 million from the general public, which The Film Foundation divided among its five-member archives.
In 1993, Cablevision's Rainbow Media division became the majority owner of the channel, when it bought out Liberty Media's 50% stake in AMC; incidentally in August of that year, Liberty announced its intent to purchase the 25% stake in the channel that Cablevision held at the time, with the Turner Broadcasting System helping to finance the buyout that included an option for TBS to eventually acquire AMC outright. The following year, Time Warner also attempted to acquire at least part of Liberty Media's stake in AMC.
In June 1995, AMC became involved with another dispute with Turner. It filed a $550 million breach of contract lawsuit against Turner Entertainment, which alleged that the company violated AMC's exclusive cable television rights to the pre-1950 Warner Bros. Pictures film library to broadcast approximately 30 times between July 1994 and April 1995, charging that Turner's objective in violating the contract was "to gain unfair advantage for the Turner Classic Movies cable network at the expense of AMC."; Turner owns rights to the RKO Radio Pictures film library and licensed RKO's films to AMC in an output deal that was slated to last through 2004. Under the terms of the deal, AMC obtained the RKO titles in exclusive windows.
Around this time, General Electric/NBC owned a stake in AMC – which it divested in the early 2000s. From 1996 to 1998, AMC aired its first original series, Remember WENN, a half-hour scripted series about a radio station during the peak of radio's influence in the 1930s. The show was well received by both critics and its enthusiastic fans, but was abruptly cancelled after its fourth season following management changes at the channel. Despite a well publicized write-in campaign to save the series, the show was not renewed for its originally scheduled fifth season.
One popular AMC program was American Pop!, which ran from 1998 to 2003 and featured movies from the 1950s and 1960s aimed at baby boomers. Of particular interest to movie completists were the segments that AMC played to fill out the timeslot : classic movie trailers, drive-in movie ads and snipes, along with music videos cribbed from movie musicals from the period.
The majority of the films presented on AMC during the 1990s had originally been released by Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, and Universal Pictures. The channel also occasionally showed classic silent films. The regular hosts of the telecasts were Bob Dorian and later, Nick Clooney, as well as New York City radio personality Gene Klavan from WNEW. Another WNEW alum, Al "Jazzbo" Collins, provided his voice for the "Jazzbo's Swingin' Soundies" series of interstitials.
For most of its first 18 years in existence, AMC provided uncut and uncolorized films without commercial interruption. Its revenue came from carriage fees provided by the cable providers that maintained carriage agreements with the channel. However, in 1998, AMC began accepting traditional advertising, incorporating limited commercial interruptions between films. By 2001, AMC had also incorporated commercial breaks during its movie telecasts. As a result of this move, Turner Classic Movies became the only one of the two classic film-focused networks to present their films commercial-free.
2002–2009: Format change and expansion into original programming
On September 30, 2002, AMC underwent a significant rebranding, changing its format from a classic movie channel, to a more general focus on movies from all eras – as well as shortening its name to just the "AMC" abbreviation, and introducing a new logo and a new slogan that says TV for Movie people. Kate McEnroe, then-president of Rainbow Media, cited lack of subsidies from cable providers as the reason for the addition of advertising, and cited ad agencies who insist on programming relevant to their products' consumers as the reason for the shift to recent movies instead of just classics. At the time of the format switchover, the company also attempted to launch a spin-off digital cable channel, AMC's Hollywood Classics, which would have required viewers to pay an extra fee to receive the channel. This commercial-free channel would have aired black-and-white classics from the 1930s through the 1950s that American Movie Classics had been airing up until its format changeover; however, the new channel never debuted.AMC also gradually brought back original programming. In 2004, AMC aired its first reality series, FilmFakers; the show featured out-of-work actors who believed they were auditioning for a major role in a real movie, only to be told that they were the subject of a prank and no film actually existed. A New York Times article on the show said that "FilmFakers may go down as one of the meanest reality series yet." From 2003 to 2007, AMC was a channel focused on American films partially classics as well as documentaries about film history such as Backstory and Movies that Shook the World.
On September 1, 2006, AMC officially became available in Canada for cable customers of Shaw Cable and satellite customers of Shaw Direct, marking the first time AMC was made available outside the United States.
In late 2007, AMC debuted its first original drama series Mad Men, a period piece about Madison Avenue advertising executives in the 1960s. The show was immediately lauded by critics, and won 16 Primetime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award. Breaking Bad, a drama series about Walter White, a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher involved in making and dealing methamphetamine, premiered in 2008; also garnering critical acclaim, winning 16 Primetime Emmy Awards. Breaking Bad and Mad Men ended their runs in 2013 and 2015, respectively, with Breaking Bad receiving a spin-off in the form of Better Call Saul.