AMC Plans Ad-Free Streaming Service (fortune.com) 40
An anonymous reader shares a Fortune report: AMC Networks, whose shows include The Walking Dead, is planning to launch a commercial-free online video streaming service aimed at millennial TV subscribers, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters this week. Unlike standalone streaming options from Time Warner's HBO and from CBS, AMC's would be exclusively available to consumers who subscribe to a cable TV package. AMC is doing this, the sources said, as a way to support the traditional cable television industry at a time when many younger consumers are increasingly cutting the cord. AMC is discussing featuring digital-only spinoff shows of its existing programs like The Walking Dead and is considering pricing between $4.99 to $6.99 a month, according to the sources, who cautioned final details are still being worked out.
Volume (Score:2)
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You might - but If I pay for a service, it should be ad free. If it isn't, I'm not paying. And I'm not the only one out there with the same stance.
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I agree with the lemming.
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It's pretty cool, I haven't seen a commercial... except maybe on TVs in restaurants in 16 years.
Of course, I have no idea who AMC is and other than the occasional t-shirt, I have no clue about "The Walking Dead" which I imagine can exclude me from certain pop cultural references, But somehow I don't think this has been a problem for me.
I think it's quite humorous that my kids have be
Aww... (Score:2)
I almost feel sorry for them. This is like a religion-levels of self-delusion here. Why they cannot simply accept that their industry is dead is beyond me. I just hope they don't take all of their great productions down with them.
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I almost feel sorry for them. This is like a religion-levels of self-delusion here. Why they cannot simply accept that their industry is dead is beyond me. I just hope they don't take all of their great productions down with them.
Because thanks to Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead they think they are a high-demand channel and they have been jacking up their carriage fees year over year. Now they are afraid of tipping over their cash cow. Problem is 2 of those shows are now history and the third is wearing thin with viewers. Compounding that is the fact that none of their new shows have been big hits. Hanging on to the cable model insures that they keep getting all that revenue a little while longer. If they go OTT (Over
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Walking Walter!
Our heroic friends are in big trouble when their worst fears come to life in the form of a Walter White no longer constrained by a hazmat suit! Not only are the zombies faster, they now randomly disassemble formerly useful items, leaving piles of useless parts behind...
Can these "speed walkers" be stopped? Will the accidental discovery that the sound of a tattoo gun renders them motionless be enough to save our friends? Tune in to our exclusi
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Because thanks to Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead they think they are a high-demand channel and they have been jacking up their carriage fees year over year. Now they are afraid of tipping over their cash cow. Problem is 2 of those shows are now history and the third is wearing thin with viewers. Compounding that is the fact that none of their new shows have been big hits
So far Better Call Saul is very highly regarded, and it seems pretty good. But yeah, outside of that...
Rambler (Score:2)
I don't know why anyone would want to buy a streaming service from the company that brought us the Gremlin and the Pacer.
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I don't know why anyone would want to buy a streaming service from the company that brought us the Gremlin and the Pacer.
Don't knock pacers, they are great for those with heart problems.
The more things change... (Score:2)
The more I love dvd.netflix.com. The streaming service continues to be semi-lame (never seems to have what I want). And the ratings and general listing UI has done nothing but get worse for the past 10 years. But queuing up a dvd and have it arrive in a couple of days is solid. And cheap.
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Does it have the full dvd complete with unskippable preroll ads and warnings or is it a stripped down copy with just the movie?
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It varies by release and all that. But if something pisses me off too much I rip it and do what I want. Doesn't happen often.
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Does it have the full dvd complete with unskippable preroll ads and warnings or is it a stripped down copy with just the movie?
Unfortunately they often have stripped down versions (no extras), but stripped down doesn't mean it doesn't have preroll ads and warnings. They'll always find room for those.
That said, I can't remember the last time I got a dvd/bluray with unskippable ads. At the very least, I can fast-forward super-fast so they're a blip.
Nothing is changing (Score:1)
We already have this kind of arrangement for HBO, Showtime, and basically every other station. We millennials don't want to waste money on cable bills like our parents did. Either sell your shows online or don't. But don't pretend that streaming your shows online for people who already have cable accounts and can already watch your shows on cable is doing anything new. This is not going to make you more money. You will
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Wait, didn't AMC start out as a free cable channel? Why yes, yes it did Anonymous Coward, then it showed old movies, heavy on the westerns.
"Free" as in your cable subscription paid for it, as did commercials.
Used to be when you paid for cable you were paying for commercial-free channels.
I remember cable companies trying to hook us that way too, unfortunately it lasted all of a few months.
cable needed for web only? service? will sat (Score:2)
cable needed for web only? service? will sat viewers have this as real channel?
But for that price there better be F bombs.
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"AMC's would be exclusively available to consumers who subscribe to a cable TV package" We already have this kind of arrangement for HBO, Showtime, and basically every other station. We millennials don't want to waste money on cable bills like our parents did. Either sell your shows online or don't. But don't pretend that streaming your shows online for people who already have cable accounts and can already watch your shows on cable is doing anything new. This is not going to make you more money. You will continue to lose money to pirates until you finally just sell your friggin product online for a price. $5 a month or $.99 an episode is my price. Offer that and I (along with millions of others) will pay. Otherwise i won't.
HBO and Showtime both have over-the-top digital only options that don't require any cable subscription. Not at your dictated price point, but they do have them. I sub to them for a couple months a year to catch up on shows then drop them until my backlog builds back up.
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>$5 a month or $.99 an episode is my price. Offer that and I (along with millions of others) will pay. Otherwise i won't
I think signing up with a streaming service for pay-per-view isn't a bad idea. Prepaid or just bill at the end of the month, and anything you rent you get full access for 30 days in case you decide to watch it twice or something. And probably some kind of threshold where if you go over then additional rentals are deeply discounted. ...And multiple tiers. C'mon... Are you going to pa
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audio books
You can listen while doing pretty much every other type of work... and driving... and pretty much everywhere. On the rare occasions I have to go to Church for a wedding or confirmation or any of the other silly things church people invite me to participate in, audio books are my hero.
braille books
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What I don't understand is, why does she have to use the PVR? If the cable TV provider allows her to actually record TV shows on equipment she pays rent for... and probably most everything that they stream is being recorded by someone somewhere... shouldn't they just record the streams and le
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Before you buy the book, consider also learning about how punctuation works. It will make the book far easier to understand when you do sit down to read it. Sasha Cohen did a great skit in the movie Borat about how punctuation effects jokes.
The question is why she should have to use a PVR since there's absol
Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems AMC has a fundamental misunderstanding of why millennials get streaming services. Few are getting it to supplement their cable and many are getting it to replace their cable TV subscription. Also, $5 to $7 per month is quite excessive if you look at what you get for your money on Netflix.
More than likely, they are going to start hire scumbags to harass people for downloading their shows which means people like me will just stop watching their programs altogether. They're going to actually do significantly more damage to their audience (which ultimately decreases the popularity of their programs among paying viewers) than they'll be getting in return for a paltry few subscribers.
Small short-term gains and large long term losses. That seems to be how corporations operate nowadays.
"We have a plan..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Cable: Take what we offer, more or less when we offer it (and we'll do our best to mess with any DVR you try to use), and pay through the nose for it. And then double or triple that to get some decent channels.
Streaming: Take what you want from our entire catalog, whenever you want, for a fraction of a cable subscription. You need an Internet connection, but we don't really care how you connect.
AMC: "Let's start a service that should replace cable television, but require subscribers to maintain their cable television subscription as well! What could possibly be stupid about that?"
Who cares? (Score:2)
Even as a European, I watch lots of AMC and I never saw any ads, ever! (I couldn't act on anything anyway)
That's why I prefer torrents over paid content any day.
Odd (Score:2)
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Mod parent Informative.
I didn't know this was available. It says AMC Roku's channel only became available last month too
Good timing for me as I just watched Season 1 of Hap and Leonard on Netflix last week and now I can watch Season 2. (S2E1 air date 3/15/17)
i would definitely pay for this a few months a year at least if it didn't require a cable subscription.
eh, I didn't realize it but I could watch it at their website too. For some reason AMC's Roku app causes my old Roku 2XS to reboot after playing a
The REAL AMC (Score:2)
I remember when AMC was actually American Movie Classics. Before there was TCM.