English Entertainment
AMC Networks expands across portfolio of channels
MUMBAI: AMC Networks International (AMCNI) has expanded its portfolio of globally renowned, locally relevant 24/7 linear television services across EMEA, the CIS, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific regions.
AMC Global, AMCNI’s international AMC-branded television network seen in over 115 countries and territories, continues to experience major growth around the world since the company launched the brand for the first time outside of North America late last year.
Distributor demand for the network is underscored by substantial first window programming acquisitions, including the upcoming premieres of Fear The Walking Dead, Into the Badlands and the new season of Halt and Catch Fire. Each series will debut on AMC Global less than 24 hours after the US premiere.
“AMC Networks International has experienced record-breaking growth with new distribution agreements on subscription television platforms around the world,” commented AMC Networks International executive vice president of global distribution Ed Palluth.
“There is clear and strong demand for our line-up of globally renowned, locally relevant channels with many platform operators adding or repositioning our services onto their basic tiers in recent months to make them widely available to customers. AMC and Sundance Channel Global remain among the first choice of operators looking to offer a wide selection of exclusive original dramas, and we’re particularly excited about the debut of series such as Fear The Walking Dead, Badlands, and the new season of Halt and Catch Fire less than 24 hours after the US premiere,” added Palluth.
In Latin America, Axtel in Mexico has launched the entire AMCNI portfolio of channels for the first time, including AMC, Sundance Channel, elgourmet, Europa Europa and Film & Arts. AMC has launched in Brazil for the first time on several cable TV systems that are members of Neo TV following the network’s debut on SKY earlier this month. AMC has also launched for the first time on multiple pay-TV platforms in Uruguay including TCC, Montecable, Nuevo Siglo and Equital. Tigo platforms throughout the region have launched or repositioned AMC on the basic tier. Casa Club TV was launched on Red Intercable in Argentina for the first time and is available on the basic tier. Sundance Channel continues to gain momentum across Latin America with launches on many new platforms, including Cablevision and Supercanal in Argentina, among others. In addition, Movistar TV has repositioned AMC to the basic tier in Colombia.
In Central Europe, Slovak Telekom in Slovakia has launched Sundance Channel for the first time and Sport1 HD to complement the SD service. Skylink in the Czech Republic and Slovakia has moved Sport2 to the basic tier doubling the subscriber count. Both Skylink and Slovak Telekom have extended the entire AMCNI portfolio carriage through multi-year agreements.
Additionally, AMC has been repositioned to the basic tier in Hungary on Magyar Telekom and Tarr. AMC Hungary’s subscriber count has almost doubled since the MGM rebrand. New multi-year agreements for AMC have been signed with several operators in CEE including PR-Telecom in Hungary and Telekom Serbia.
In addition, AMCNI recently rebranded MGM’s SD channel as AMC across all its systems in the CIS and the Baltics including on MTS, Rostelecom, Beeline and NTV + in Russia. Across Africa, the company recently announced the first-ever launch of Eva, a new telenovela channel, on the DStv platform owned by MultiChoice. In the UK, it was recently announced that Horror Channel launched on Freeview resulting in 90 per cent DTT coverage. Horror Channel is already the second largest FTA movie channel in cable and satellite homes due to carriage deals with Sky and Virgin.
In the Asia-Pacific region, audiences in Taiwan can now see Sundance Channel on Asia Pacific Telecom. PPCTV in Cambodia recently launched Sundance Channel, and Sansar Cable in Mongolia will launch the network soon. This follows the recent announcement that Singtel TV in Singapore launched AMC for the first time.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
