AMC Networks Touts Digital Originals in Upfront as Biggest Shows End Their Runs

Many of AMC Networks' biggest shows are ending their runs this year: Better Call Saul, Killing Eve and The Walking Dead. That's one reason that Kim Kelleher, AMC Networks president of commercial revenue and partnerships, expects that this year's upfront conversations will be driven by digital. The company’s digital originals—first included as part of 2021’s upfront—are expected to play an even bigger role during this year’s conversations, and will also be front and center during its upfront presentation this evening at New York's The Peak. During the event, AMC Networks will also focus on several new FAST channels, a new suite of digital ad offerings and the new shows waiting in the wings that the company hopes will eventually become as popular as its concluding series, including its new franchise centered around the works of Anne Rice, the late Gothic novelist. Strength of digital originals AMC Networks is set to unveil a new slate of digital originals during the presentation. The series come from the company’s branded content studio The Content Room and are also sold through its AMCN Digital Offering. “We’ve had a really, really successful first year and some partnerships and executions that we are incredibly proud of,” Kelleher told Adweek. As dollars continue to shift away from linear, AMC Networks sees an increasing opportunity in the digital and streaming spaces. "We look at it as additive," Kelleher told Adweek. "It's making sure that we are super serving the genre fandoms wherever they want to be. We can learn what is resonating with the viewership, and then super serve that across that genre on all the different distributions." The Content Room proved to be a big success for AMC Networks in the past year, led by Fear the Walking Dead star Colman Domingo’s series Bottomless Brunch at Colman’s, which transformed from a digital short in the early days of the pandemic into a program on multiple digital and linear platforms and a podcast. AMC Networks Selling Addressable Ads in All AMC and WE tv 2022 Original Shows “The success of that is definitely something that we’re modeling this new slate after, because it was a show that not only the fans absolutely loved, but our partners did as well,” said Kim Granito, evp of The Content Room and integrated marketing, pointing to the multi-platform and multi-quarter partnership with Sexton Whiskey for the final season of The Walking Dead and a partnership with Hunter Boots for Killing Eve. “We’ve run the gamut in categories and types of creative executions, but definitely had the most luck with the digital original slate,” Granito said. “Shows that bleed out of our biggest hit franchises with the largest audiences, and shows that grow out of fan favorite talent are the things that really resonated the most with fans, but also our clients are fans of our content as well.” The upcoming slate of new originals includes a new one from Domingo, You Are Here, which takes viewers on a personal journey through the cities that built him. With Better Call Saul returning for its sixth and final season later this month, three digital originals will join the linear series, including the final season of its Employee Training Series, the return of animated short-form series Sippin’ Jimmy and new original comedy Cooper’s Bar, starring Rhea Seehorn. The company will have two digital companion shows around Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, which premieres later this year. Also, AllBlk and WE tv series Brat Loves Judy will have a companion show, Managing Brat, while Show Me More focuses on the final seasons of AMC Networks’ scripted series The Walking Dead, Killing Eve and Better Call Saul while introducing new series. And digital series Can We Talk About This? is returning. “There’s so many interesting creative onramps for brands, whether it’s a travel partner or a liquor partner, a mobile partner that's about connection,” said Granito. “We’re creating a lot of these originals with an eye towards the messaging we know our partners are talking about.” In the FAST lane AMC Networks is continuing with its “viewers first” strategy, first emphasized during its 2020 talks, by launching six new FAST channels, expected to launch in the coming months. AMC en Español will feature Spanish-language versions of hit AMC Networks shows. Hidive x Anime is designed to super serve the anime fan with original series from Japan. Shorts and Cortos (the Spanish-language version) is a FAST channel dedicated to short film, AllBlk Gems highlights programming from the streaming service and Overtime is a brand partnership with the Brooklyn-based sports brand. “What we’ve learned is [FAST channels] perform incredibly well for us when they are as thoughtfully put together as we would put together a linear channel,” said Kelleher. “We have completely immersed our FAST strategy across the larger divisions of AMC Networks. It’s not a repository for us for old library content. We’re not just trying things, we’re making sure that we have enough hours of content that we can refresh it, that it can be dynamic.” The channels are carried across connected TV and streaming platforms, including Pluto TV, Sling TV, Samsung TV Plus, Vizio, Plex and Xumo, and Kelleher said the company will be partnering with additional outlets later this year. “Our strategy is different than many in that since we are not handcuffed by owning a platform ourselves, it allows us to work in partnership with all the big guys,” said Kelleher. TEAL time AMC Networks is furthering its digital advertising push by unveiling TEAL (Technology Enabled, Audience Led), a product suite designed to help brands access the company’s digital ad products and advanced technologies. The products include Shoppable, Interactive, Integrations, Take-over and Exclusive. The Shoppable experience will launch with the Content Room series Show Me More: Killing Eve in partnership with Coco De Mer and Hunter Boots. Interactive includes a collection of creative overlays that allow interactions with partner products, including pause, overlays, credit squeeze or picture in picture. Integrations will integrate products in content post-production, Take-over will display ad ownership across the company’s digital library, and Exclusive will present content with limited commercial experiences. All series from Content Room will be powered by TEAL, and the company expects the product offerings to play a significant role during the year’s upfront. “Once we got to a place of scale with our digital inventory, we wanted to make sure that our advanced digital products could equally be as scalable,” Evan Adlman, svp of advanced advertising and digital partnerships, told Adweek. “These are products that are now capable to be scaled across all of the inventory and programming.” New and ongoing franchises As it prepares to say farewell to Killing Eve, Better Call Saul and The Walking Dead, AMC said it isn’t concerned about selling its content slate without some of its most popular titles. The final episodes of The Walking Dead don’t premiere until the fourth quarter, so they will be included in this year’s upfront, as well as several upcoming spin-offs of the franchise, including this summer's Tales of the Walking Dead. “We’re announcing a pretty incredible content suite,” said Kelleher. “The fandom of The Walking Dead is not going to let that franchise go, and we weren’t going to let them go either.” The company believes that its new Anne Rise franchise has the potential to be a tentpole for the networks, and made sure to debut footage from the first two shows—Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire and Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches—during AMC+'s first-ever Super Bowl ad in February. “I would double down on Anne Rise,” said Kelleher. “We’re debuting two new shows, and they are sensational. It’s classic AMC.” In other show news, AMC Networks has greenlit a new Orphan Black series, called Orphan Black: Echoes, which is set in the world of the original BBC America series and will air on AMC+ and the company's linear networks next year. It's also fast-tracking development on Straight Man, a potential new series for 2023 that would star Better Call Saul's Bob Odenkirk. Chris Licht Famously Turned Around Colbert’s Late Show. What Will It Take to Save CNN?