AMC -- It's paying off
Joe Gillis
From Media Life Magazine
AMC's tricky reinvention
From old movies to all things movies is working
By Heidi Vogt
The great thing about American Movie Classics used to be that it
showed old movies.
The not-so-great thing was that its viewers were as old as those
movies.
It was good television, surely, and good for viewers.
For a network concerned about advertising, though, it was a
different matter entirely. One's late 50s are a fine time in life but
not necessarily the time when advertisers want to make your
acquaintance.
Three months ago, the network decided on what might seem a radical
change. Instead of being an old movie network, it would morph into a
network of and about movies.
The goals were two: building audience and lowering the age of that
audience, and lower it dramatically, from the mid-5os to to 40ish.
There were several risks. One was failing to draw new viewers --
all those young people -- while alienating its core, if older,
audience.
Another risk was blurring the network's identity with all the other
cable networks known for showing movies.
So in October the network once known as American Movie Classics,
more recently as AMC, adopted a new look, a new slogan -- "TV for
Movie People" and, heaven forbid, began showing newer movies, many in
color and some that dated back no more than a decade.
Also came, even worse, commercial breaks within the movies.
Old-movie fans squawked, and they are still squawking.
Yet early signs suggest the transformation of AMC is taking hold.
Viewership is up.
AMC’s primetime household ratings climbed throughout the fourth
quarter of 2002 from a 0.6 in October to a 0.74 in December, an
increase of 23 percent.
The new viewers appear to be much younger as well -- sufficiently
young to lower the network's overall median age. It dropped from 56.7
in the fourth quarter of 2001 to 53.2 in the fourth quarter of 2002.
But, perhaps most important, viewers seem to get the new AMC
concept.
“An older audience is not finding a nostalgic network anymore on
AMC,” says Noreen O'Loughlin, executive vice president and general
manager of AMC.
“At this point the movies that we’re showing on AMC are primarily
from the '70s, '80s and '90s. It’s not like we’ve shifted radically to
a totally contemporary product,” says O’Loughlin. “We still do have
some older classics on the network, and I think there will be always
be Audrey Hepburn and John Wayne on AMC.”
To distinguish itself as a network about movies, AMC is adding a
fair dose of original content and expects to add more. It includes
more features about stars and Hollywood backgrounders and the great
ages of film.
In April, AMC will premiere “The Wrong Coast,” a stop-motion
program in which movies are recast to answer the questions you never
thought to ask, like “What if Woody Allen were Spiderman?” or “What if
Britney Spears choreographed Braveheart?”
Other upcoming documentaries follow all aspects of Hollywood life
from reality show fame to gay Hollywood to women who have risen to
power in the film industry. “It’s a cross-pollination of movies and
television,” says O’Loughlin.
She describes the shift to more contemporary movies and original
content as an evolutionary process that started five years ago, not a
quick decision made three months ago.
“Over the years we’ve been integrating more contemporary movies.
It’s a matter of growth. We’re trying to build our audience and build
our network. And we’ve stayed true to a core of people who really love
movies.”
She says those viewers will get used to the commercials, if they
haven't already. The network now runs eight minutes of national
advertising and two minutes of local advertising per hour across all
shows and movies. This is the final shift for a network that started
book-ending movies with commercials in 2000 and then gradually phased
in commercial intermissions mid-movie.
“We’ve gotten some feedback from some of our viewers who are
disappointed,” says O’Loughlin.
“But these are movies that people are used to seeing on
television, used to seeing them with commercial interruption."
=================================================
"I don't mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy." -- Samuel Butler
Joe Gillis
>
From a post in another NG:
============================
Re: AMC rewarded with ratings, younger viewers
From: "Dwayne Day" zirc...@earthlink.net
Date: 1/10/03 3:25 PM CST
Message-id: <XSGT9.3374$Dq.3...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>
> From Media Life Magazine
>
> AMC's tricky reinvention
[snip]
Well, this is another example of the movie suits spinning their success
during the recent cable TV convention where all those evil journalists tried
to ask them tough questions.
The reality is slightly different:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19754-2003Jan6.html
Quote:
"At the press tours, cable nets mostly prevent critics from asking questions
by eating up all their allotted time. On the other hand, Rob Sorcher,
American Movie Classics programming senior vice president, simply refused to
answer a question about why AMC had abandoned its business model as a
commercial-free haven for old-movie fans. He ordered critics to ask
questions only about AMC's new stop-motion foam animation series, "The Wrong
Coast," which, AMC explains, sort of puts together two very different
movies, like "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Osbournes." Yes, I know "The
Osbournes" is not a movie; send your letters to AMC.
Sorcher had killed as much time as possible talking about the miraculous
growth of AMC's young audience since it started jazzing up its old movies
with commercial breaks that are apparently so appealing to younger viewers,
while emphasizing more newer movies and original programming/ Meanwhile,
AMC's audience of older viewers has diminished, as planned, he added.
Sorcher did not provide any actual numbers. Here they are: In calendar 2002,
AMC averaged 341,000 viewers between the ages of 25 and 54, which for AMC is
a "younger" viewer. In 2000, AMC averaged 351,000 25-to-54-year-olds.
Among older viewers, AMC's audience also went down during those two years.
In 2002, AMC averaged 444,000 viewers 50 and older. In 2000, the network
averaged 499,000 viewers in that age bracket."
Okay.
So according to the Media Life article, AMC has boosted its ratings.
But--get this--its ratings are still lower than they were two years ago.
Lulu
AMC's inception (when I was still a child), I was a devoted AMC viewer.
These days, I wouldn't cross the street to spit on AMC.
-Lulu
S D
Tower Record commercials come from the same agency?
babeone
"Lulu" <nos...@nospam.org> wrote in message
news:28nvva...@sockmonkey.dyndns.org...
AMC's self-description ("TV for movie people") is wrong.
It should be "Movies for TV people" because that's exactly what it has been
turned into. Anyone truly interested in movies for their own sake won't find
much of interest there anymore.
Babe
Tom Cervo
>AMC's inception (when I was still a child), I was a devoted AMC viewer.
>
>These days, I wouldn't cross the street to spit on AMC.
I'd walk a block to spit on their programmers.
dancertm
I never watch that pile channel anymore...and I was watching it before
in my 30's. Higher ratings beget the lowest common denominator.
Brown Margaret
The worst part is that most of their ads are FOR AMC. It makes the breaks
so much more frustrating when all they do is interrupt the movie to
talk about how wonderful AMC is.
Have you written to complain? I have.
Maggie
--
- Happiness is not having what you want, it's wanting what you have.
babeone
"Brown Margaret" <bro...@stripe.colorado.edu> wrote in message
news:brownm.1...@stripe.colorado.edu...
Yes I did...months ago. Can't even remember at this point whether I received
a canned response or none at all, not that it would have mattered much.
Babe
dancertm
wrote:
>I'm so disappointed in AMC. Went from a great place to see movies to crap.
>
>The worst part is that most of their ads are FOR AMC. It makes the breaks
>so much more frustrating when all they do is interrupt the movie to
>talk about how wonderful AMC is.
>
>Have you written to complain? I have.
>
>Maggie
I think what you can do, and I think I'll do this, as I just thought
of it, write the cable company and ask they find something else to put
on that channel number :-)