As the streaming wars heat up, AMC Networks is keeping one of its big guns--the upcoming third series in the Walking Dead franchise--for itself and its own direct-to-consumer platforms.

Speaking on the company’s third-quarter earnings call Thursday, CEO Josh Sapan noted that the company had done a lucrative deal with Amazon to distribute the series overseas, outside of territories where AMC owns networks.

“However, in the U.S. we are holding back rights that we’ve traditionally sold to third parties,” Sapan said. “So domestically we will not sell the SVOD rights to this third Walking Dead series, but rather the series will be used to fuel our own platforms, both streaming as well as linear, as we window it and take full advantage of the opportunities that it presents for us.”

Related: AMC Networks Reports Higher Third-Quarter Net

The new Walking Dead series, set to have its linear premiere in the second quarter, could be a good fit for AMC Premiere, the company’s ad-free services, or Shudder, it’s horror-based SVOD service, Sapan suggested.

But Sapan noted that AMC would be looking at the best way to monetize its shows on a case-by-case basis.

He noted that the series Nos4a2 premiered on the AMC channel in the U.S. and then went to two of AMC’s streaming platforms, Shudder and AMC Premiere.

Related: AMC Orders Season 10 of ‘The Walking Dead’

A Discovery of Witches, on the other hand, debuted earlier this year on Shudder and Sundance Now, driving record usage and subscriber acquisition. Then it appeared on AMC channel, where it delivered strong ratings, he said.

“These examples illustrate how our multiple platforms are creating increasingly varied past to monetization and significant and different opportunities for our intellectual property, content engine,” he said.

Sapan also noted that AMC’s streaming services don’t really compete with the heavyweights from Comcast, AT&T, Disney and Apple that will be duking it out.

Instead AMC’s streaming services are hyper targeted and focused and “are thriving and we believe will continue to thrive, alongside what some may call the Something for Everyone SVOD category that is becoming more crowded and competitive by the day,” he said.

“The economic fundamentals around these targeted services have great attributes and are, in some cases, particularly for a company like ours, superior to the general entertainment SVOD category as there’s not the same pressure on retail price and there is not the same share battle,” Sapan said, noting that Acorn TV, AMC’s streaming service specializing in British shows, increased its price by $1 a month yet continued to grow.

Acorn TV recently passed the 1 million subscriber threshold, he noted, and AMC has been telling analysts it expects to have more than 2 million subscribers among all its services. “We are in fact now pacing to be ahead of that stated target,” Sapan said.

The company expects its streaming businesses to cross 3.5 million to 4 million cumulative subs by 2022 and by 2024 its said it plans to be in the 5 million to 7 million subscriber range. At that point, those services will be generating $500 million, the company forecasts.

“AMC Networks is well on its way to strategically transforming itself from a cable channels company into a premier content company with a suite of focused and targeted video entertainment products that are delivered to viewers on an ever expanding array of platforms,” Sapan said.

“And as our TV series come off their exhibition windows on main stream streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, they will then come back to us, AMC Networks, for the first time, representing a new business opportunity as we make determinations around the optimal utilization of that content,” he said.

Start-up virtual pay TV service fuboTV has announced the addition of commercial-free channels AMC Premiere and FX+ to its bundle of premium add-ons.

Users can order the channels the same way they would Showtime—AMC Premiere will add $4.99 to their bill, while FX+ will tack on $5.99.

fuboTV is the first major vMVPD to offer the two channels.

Related: FuboTV Closes in on 250k Subscriber Mark

“Premium ad-free offerings like AMC Premiere and FX+ illustrate how fuboTV is able to take advantage of our next-gen platform to bring cord-cutters great content and experiences that many pay TV providers can’t—or won’t—provide,” said Ben Grad, fuboTV’s head of content strategy and acquisition, in a statement.

fuboTV announced last month that it added 30,000 subscribers in the third quarter, bringing its base to around 250,000 customers. 

AMC has officially launched its premium AMC Premiere service on YouTube TV, the network said Wednesday (July 11).

AMC Premiere, which costs $4.99 a month and gives subscribers access to commercial-free versions of AMC’s series plus extras including bonus footage, sneak peeks of future episodes and exclusive behind-the-scenes features, will now be available on YouTube TV’s channel lineup, which costs $40 a month.

The deal between AMC and YouTube TV was initially announced this past February.

“Our viewers are at the center of AMC Premiere’s success, and this launch now makes it available to YouTube TV customers across the country,” said Mac McKean, executive vice president of innovation for AMC and SundanceTV, in a statement. “We’re excited to offer commercial-free viewing and the chance to watch seasons of AMC shows like The Terror ahead of anyone else, as well as extended episodes of popular AMC shows. YouTube TV has been a fantastic partner and the launch represents an exciting opportunity for AMC Premiere.”

YouTube TV is the second major television provider to roll out AMC Premiere in cooperation with AMC, following an initial launch on Comcast last summer, said the network.

AMC Networks is expecting the return of its monster hit The Walking Dead to give a lift to its premium subscription service AMC Premiere.

AMC Premiere, which costs $4.99 a month and gives subscribers access to commercial-free versions of AMC’s series plus extras including bonus footage, sneak peeks of future episodes and exclusive behind-the-scenes features, launched with Comcast last June.

YouTube TV, though, has also agreed to distribute AMC Premiere. It will begin rolling out over the next few months. AMC continues to talk to other distributors about carrying the service.

While he wouldn’t provide specific subscriber numbers for Premiere, Mac McKean, executive VP of innovation at AMC Networks, said, “We’re happy with the response to date and we’re about where we expected to be in terms of the business.”

Momentum Building
The return of The Walking Dead for the second half of its eighth season on Feb. 25 is “going to be a great moment for Premiere, and then that’s going to be followed by McMafia,” the upcoming British organized-crime drama, McKean said.

This past weekend, Comcast offered a free preview of AMC Premiere, giving Xfinity TV subscribers access to AMC’s current programs, including the first half of The Walking Dead’s current season.

AMC also is loading Premiere with exclusive Walking Dead content such as previews and features that should appeal to the show’s huge fan base. The first half of the interstitial featurette Red Machete has also been stitched together to make it easy to watch on Premiere.

After the first episode of McMafia debuts on the AMC linear network on Feb. 26, AMC Premiere subscribers will be able to watch all eight episodes, the first time AMC has enabled that kind of early binge watching for one of its series.

“We’re learning from our experiences and we’re fine-tuning the service, and so one of the things we’re going to try based on user feedback is to make a whole season of a show available starting with the day of premiere,” McKean said. “We think because it is so thrilling and suspenseful, it will be a good fit to make the entire season available as a binge for viewers.”

McKean said Premiere is designed to complement and extend the linear AMC — generating revenue and elevating the network’s shows within a new environment.

The subscription service also facilitates a direct connection with viewers and fans. “We’re talking to our users, to our subscribers, and we’re analyzing the data and we’re looking at what features and elements are resonating and are delivering on that promise,” he said. “And we’ll continue with that process through these new upcoming seasons.”

Features and Fixes
Features popular with early AMC Premiere users include the ease with which it can be accessed on any device and that the content plays in a premium manner.

Among the things AMC needs to fix is that viewers aren’t aware of much of the exclusive content offered. “You’re just not used to getting that,” McKean said. “People don’t know to look for it.”

Because AMC shows are already appointment viewing for fans, AMC Premiere viewing tends to peak as new episodes debut, even though on-demand viewers can watch whenever they want.

The most popular shows on Premiere have largely been the same ones as on the linear channel, although the older-skewing Revolutionary War drama Turn has shown some extra strength.

McKean said AMC Premiere does not seem to be stealing many viewers from ad-supported AMC: “Having an extension of linear like Premiere is raising the profile of both. When we promote Premiere, we’re promoting the shows.

“Comcast has been an incredibly great partner,” he added. “They’re supporting AMC as a whole, and that shows up in greater engagement with the network as a whole.”

FX continues to build the lineup for its FX+ commercial free service by adding epiosdes from several series including Emmy-award winning series Atlanta, the network announced Monday.

FX+, which is currently available to Comcast Xfinity TV and Cox Contour subscribers for fee of $5.99 per month, will now include episodes from its freshman comedy series Atlanta -- which recently won two Emmy Awards – drama series The Americans, Legion and Taboo, and comedy series Better Things, according to network officials.

The shows will be rolled out over a period of time, with FX+ expected to complete its roster beginning in 2018, the company said. Overall, FX+ will feature more than 1,300 episodes of award-winning and acclaimed original programs spanning the past 15 years. Among the shows currently available on the service include American Horror Story, Baskets, Nip/Tuck,, The Shield, Wilfred, The League and Louie.

 AMC has also launched a commercial-free version of the network, AMC Premiere, which Comcast carries for $4.99 a month.

Comcast last week signed a deal creating a premium commercial-free on-demand service with FX Networks.

The deal comes at a time when, according to Matt Strauss, executive vice president and general manager, video and entertainment services at Comcast Cable, there’s probably more high-quality original programming available than in the history of television.

Comcast will see more than 4 billion hours of on-demand usage this year and Strauss said the cable operator will continue to invest to provide instant gratification and to blur the lines between what’s live, what’s on-demand, what’s on your DVR and what’s over-the-top. Strauss talked to Multichannel News contributor Jon Lafayette about what Comcast is thinking as it launches premium services. Here’s an edited excerpt of their conversation.

MCN:Based on the AMC Premiere and the FX+ announcements, have you found a segment of your customers who don’t like watching commercials?
Matt Strauss: We think of ourselves as the aggregator of aggregators. We want to have all of the choices and the best choices available in one place. In many ways, that is why we put Netflix on X1 and we’re putting YouTube on X1 later this year.

At the same time, DVRs are now at 50% penetration of the market and in many ways, it gives you control, it gives you the ability to fast-forward through ads or, if you have cloud DVR, we give our customers the ability to stream their DVR recordings or download their DVR recordings, so in many ways this is just another choice.

There is a segment of viewers who would be willing to pay an incremental fee for a more premium experience. They do that today with premium channels. They do that today with [subscription video-on-demand] services.

Commercial-free is one piece of it. If somebody really wanted that premium experience — had the ability to, in one place, catch up from the beginning and have the most comprehensive catalogue of FX programming — it really didn’t exist. And now, with our technology and through our partnership with FX, we have the ability to offer FX subscribers the option to a more premium experience.

MCN:Did you do consumer research on the demand for commercial-free options?
MS: We have done research on this. There’s absolutely a segment of the population that would be willing to pay an incremental fee for a commercial-free experience. We’ve been offering electronic sell-through now for years and in a relatively short amount of time we’ve actually become one of the largest digital retailers in the country. So we’ve even seen it first-hand where people are willing to pay $3 an episode. So there’s both research and there been some actual transactional data that has led us to believe that there is a segment — it’s not everybody — who is willing to pay extra.

MCN:How big is that segment?
MS: It’s hard to say only because it depends on the network and the passion index of the network.

But there’s something even bigger at work here, which is it’s providing the networks a sandbox to experiment with different models and to potentially provide also a mechanism for them to reclaim rights or to aggregate more rights or to experiment with more original programming, and to do it in a way that we think is going to really benefit our customers.

MCN:What have you learned since adding Netflix to X1?
MS: Since we’ve added Netflix, I think we’ve seen all boats rise. We’ve seen an increase in total on-demand consumption. We’ve seen an increase in total viewership on our platform and as a result we’ve also seen many networks see an increase in their viewership because we have even more eyeballs using on-demand.

So I think as we continue to offer more and more choices — but also do it in a way that it is contextually integrated — I think that the key on the X1 platform, whether it’s the voice remote, whether it’s our recommendations and the personalization, it’s how do we snap this all together in one place.

It also gives us the ability to contextually offer somebody a subscription, so if you’re watching American Horror Story, you’re going to be able to go to X1, it’s live, you’ll be able to now watch it on-demand for free with ads and there will be another choice that says would you like to subscribe to FX+ and watch it ad-free or watch all the prior episodes and the prior seasons?

You’re seeing those elements all come together in a way that’s redefining what you should expect to get when you subscribe to pay TV and certainly kind of surprising; it’s delighting our customers when they have a platform like X1.

MCN:Did your ad sales folks object to the commercial-free services?
MS: I can’t comment on that. I think though that it ultimately has to start with the customer and the viewer giving them the choices.

And if you look at our technology, technology has continued to evolve and that means that we have to challenge the status quo, even if that means in some cases disrupting ourselves. … We’ve always been very bullish on giving customers more choice and creating the technology to add more value to pay TV and we’re not going to stop that.