How do you stand out in a crowded upfront environment that now includes tech giants alongside legacy entertainment companies?
Going early helps, and so is being a bit different. So this week AMC Networks plans to gather its brand marketing partners and clients, and in an unusual twist its distribution partners (think pay-TV companies and other platforms that distribute AMC Networks content), in what it is describing as an “immersive” showcase for its programming.
“We can’t be so assumptive that everyone watches all of our shows, so it’s up to us to really bring them to life and at least ensure that everyone there wants to [watch] when they leave,” AMC Networks chief commercial officer Kim Kelleher tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview, adding that the company is widening the aperture of who the audience is for an upfront in order to acknowledge the complex nature of content distribution and advertising today. “You can’t really talk about placing your ads unless you’re actually including all the different places they’re being placed, and so we’re bringing that together and bringing those audiences together.”
AMC Networks will have its share of news too. The company has leaned into core franchises, with The Walking Dead universe and the Anne Rice universe perhaps the best examples. Now it wants to turn classic literature into a franchise of its own.
AMC is launching what it calls a Great American Stories anthology franchise, starting with The Grape of Wrath, with other classic adaptations to follow.
And the company is expanding its Acorn TV slate with a big new addition: A crime drama called Allie & Andi starring Brooke Shields, who plays a crime novelist who partners with a writer to solve the murder of her friend.
Acorn, which launched as a hub for British TV but has since expanded to become a home for mystery and drama fare, will be a significant part of the upfront pitch, as AMC launches a free ad-supported version of Acorn called Acorn TV Mysteries.
“We don’t look at that ecosystem as an opportunity to put up unmonetizable stuff from the old library. Actually, we really program our channels to be representative of the brands they are that they carry the moniker of,” Kelleher says, noting that the FAST option will be the first time that much of Acorn’s programming will be available to advertisers. “We’ve had a lot of people over the years say, we’re very interested in that audience, and they haven’t had access to it before. This will be the first time they’ve had access to that audience. And then the idea is, once you’re in a digital environment, it becomes a barter channel for subscription to the [primary] service… you want to catch up on all the seasons that aren’t there. You know, it’s a click to subscribe. And I feel like the the OEMs and the other big digital platforms, the Rokus, Amazons of the world, they’re really getting very, very close to closing that loop.”
And then there’s horror, a genre that AMC has leveraged not only through franchises like The Walking Dead, but also through its Shudder horror brand, and events like FearFest.
“It’s a genre that just shows no slowing down right now,” Kelleher says, calling back to 2024, when she dubbed horror “the new humor.”
“I stand by that as far as escapism for people right now, and you can see it in the box office, at the theatrical level, we certainly see it in our subscriber and our engagement base on the Shudder platform, but then we also see it even in the declining linear environment, where FearFest is pulling numbers that are just staggering,” she adds.
For this year, AMC Networks is partnering with the Sphere (another company that shares common ownership with the Dolan family), on this year’s “Sphere of Fear,” where the Las Vegas attraction’s exosphere and social platforms, as well as AMC Networks’ platforms, will be available to brands.
“Imagine a brand being able to have a moment on the outside on the exosphere and at the same time thread that through all of our distribution points of where FearFest content lives and people are watching, along with nightly check ins on our network of what’s going on at the Sphere within that particular week,” Kelleher says.
And the company has ordered a new unscripted series for Shudder and AMC+ called Guts & Glory from Walking dead special effects artist Greg Nicotero, thrusting participants into immersive horror-themed challenges (Nicotero describes it as “if Survivor and The Blair Witch Project had a baby”).
AMC also says that Janelle Monáe will return as “HalloQueen” for this year’s FearFest, with the previously announced ad-supported tier of Shudder also set to debut.
The Content Room, the company’s branded entertainment studio, is also leaning into franchises, with opportunities connected to the 15th anniversary of The Walking Dead, and a “backstage pass” connected to season three of Interview with the Vampire.
“We’re focused on three areas,” says AMC Networks CMO Kim Granito, calling out franchises as one piece of that puzzle. “The other one is cultural moments, Best Christmas Ever, FearFest, Sundance Film Festival. These are huge beats for us that we don’t only just entertain at, but we bring in a ton of advertisers. And then I think a new space that has been growing over the last couple of years is brands using our targeted distribution platforms as a distribution platform for their projects. Just around Women’s History Month, we did a project with L’Oreal where we hosted their film, it is doing incredibly well on AMC+ and Sundance Now, we did something earlier in the year for Michelob Ultra, so we’re seeing a lot more of those types of projects come in as well.”
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