Sunday was a big day for AMC Networks’ AMC Plus ad-free direct-to-consumer service.
AMC Networks ran an ad in the Super Bowl highlighting the programming on AMC Plus, including upcoming conclusion of popular series like The Walking Dead, Better Call Saul and Killing Eve, as well as new series like Interview with the Vampire.
AMC Plus subscribers got early access to the first episode of part 2 of the final season of The Walking Dead starting Super Sunday. The episode will appear on AMC Networks this Sunday.
AMC said that in the first three days it was available, the new Walking Dead episode became the most-watched episode of any series on AMC Plus to date.
The company said “this week’s episode also becomes the #1 season launch for customer acquisition, with double-digit growth from the prior season.” Maybe that means AMC Plus had a record number of sign ups. Maybe not.
On Monday during its earnings call with analysts, AMC Networks said its group of streaming services ended the year with more than 9 million subscribers, up 50% year over year. Interim CEO Matt Blank, said that by the end of the year, AMC would be halfway toward reaching its 2025 target of 20 million to 25 million subscribers.
CFO Christina Space said the company expected to add 400,000 to 500,000 net subscribers in the first quarter of 2022.
The Super Bowl ad is part of AMC Networks’ ramped up marketing effort.
“One of the things you are going to see in addition to the aggressive pursuit of subscribers for our streaming services as we begin the year with our best content in history, you are going to see us doing a lot of marketing to support that content and support the brands that we offer as a backdrop to all of the directed specialized marketing we do in the streaming world,” Blank said on the earnings call. “So, the Super Bowl spot was one part of it. I think that with the type of content we have this year, that was an important opportunity to kind of take advantage of that content and get our message out more broadly to consumers.”
“For the Super Bowl ad, we felt it was important for AMC Plus, as an extension of our linear business, to let consumers know, to let audiences know that the final episodes, the final seasons of franchises like The Walking Dead, Better Call Saul, Killing Eve are now going to be premiered on AMC Plus,” added Miquel Penella, president of streaming services for AMC Networks.
“But that is not typically what we do to acquire customers,” Penella added. “What we do to acquire customers follows a very disciplined approach that includes creating audience profiles and really targeting our marketing campaigns based on our understanding of the consumer's lifetime value and with a very specific target for the cost per acquired customer. And that’s something that we do systematically in a disciplined manner, and we manage it on a daily basis.” ■
