“Taken together with the company’s laser-focus on unit economics and building a sustainable business, we see a clear (and realistic) path forward for AMC Networks,” MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman wrote. MoffettNathanson Research, which had been bearish on AMC Networks’ chances, was supportive of Blank’s vision in a research note. The company raised its full-year revenue guidance after reporting third-quarter earnings last month. The streaming wars is being fought among giants, but Blank is not the only one who thinks AMC Networks has a shot. It gives us an opportunity to curate a product directly for the needs of those users.” “We’ve got a targeted business with a lower cost structure and a more loyal customer base. “We’re not trying to play the game that all the other big players are playing,” Blank said. AMC can’t afford to spend tens of billions of dollars on content like its larger rivals, but in Blank’s view, it doesn’t have to. “I can’t come to work every morning and say, ‘Are we going to sell this company?’ I can come in and say, ‘How do we drive streaming subs up next month? How do we get our shows on the air earlier?’ When people would ask me, ‘How can you compete with HBO?’ I’d say, ‘I can’t control what they do, I can only control what we do.'”īlank credited Sapan and his team with focusing AMC’s content of the future on distinct verticals with fervent fan bases, like horror, fantasy, Black audiences and British drama buffs. “If we create more shareholder value, we’ll have the ability to do more to attract the best people to come work for us.”īlank conceded that AMC is caught in a speculatory swirl, but he recalled from his early Showtime days how important it was to tune out the what-ifs and focus on the programming, marketing and distribution tasks at hand. The way to do that is take advantage of our strong traditional businesses, keep them going to super-charge our streaming strategy,” Blank said. “I’m here to create more shareholder value. Blank says flatly that he had no interest in serving as a caretaker for a transaction. Sapan’s move out of the C-suite was seen as a signal that the company, with roots in the Dolan family’s cable empire, was ready to begin a sale process. But we have a very strong traditional business model that is still working really well.”ĪMC Networks has been seen as a prime acquisition target for years because of its modest size and market cap in comparison to Big Media and Big Tech competitors. “We need to try to kind of bring it down to reality a bit,” he said. His startup experience from an earlier generation of new media has come in handy in his work as a board member of such outfits as CuriosityStream and Cumulus Media and in his previous role as an advisor to Raine Group.īlank said he’s spent a lot of time looking at media from the “30,000-foot level” in recent years. This is a company that is still delivering a great performance,” Blank told Variety in his first interview since taking the reins from Josh Sapan, who segued to the vice chairman role after more than 25 years at the helm.īlank was part of the team that build HBO in the 1970s and ‘80,s and then he did the same at Showtime over 30 years, including 20 as CEO. But for the foreseeable future, widely distributed channels such as AMC, SundanceTV and BBC America will still deliver solid, if slowly diminishing, returns, from contractually guaranteed affiliate fees from MVPDs and advertising revenue.
THE WALKING DEAD S09E13 STREAMANG TV
The linear pay TV market has been transformed by cord-cutting and the rise of direct-to-consumer options for TV services. Matt Blank, the industry veteran who joined AMC Networks as interim CEO in August, aims to harness the financial foundation provided by AMC Networks’ core legacy linear cable channels - AMC, SundanceTV, BBC America, IFC and WeTV – to invest in direct-to-consumer streaming and original content production.
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