The “streaming wars” have largely been a race to amass the most content to entice the masses. Under CMO Kim Granito, AMC Networks has adopted a focused counterstrategy: eschewing the “something for everyone” model to become “everything to someone.”
By combining a legacy of premium storytelling with a focus on fandoms and sophisticated audience intelligence, including emerging AI tools, AMC is writing a new playbook to turn casual viewers into committed evangelists.
The psychology of vertical streaming
The persistence of AMC’s fandoms can be seen on the top of the streaming charts. Shows like “Mad Men,” “The Walking Dead,” and “Interview With the Vampire” continue to connect with audiences new and old. “We’re in a very different game than the big streamers,” Granito explains. “Our content strategy on AMC+ is about premium storytelling for adults and big IP franchises.”
While competitors rely on volume, Granito explains how her focus is on becoming ‘everything to someone.’ “Our targeted streaming services — Acorn TV for international mysteries, Shudder for horror fans, HIDIVE for anime fans, Sundance Now for independent film enthusiasts — are really about going deep on specific verticals, programming to them, and building fan communities around the genres they love.”
The fandoms, in turn, influence the marketing and content. For years, AMC had been hearing fan questions about how “Mayfair Witches” and “Interview with the Vampire” coexist in the Anne Rice universe. AMC’s latest entry, “Talamasca: The Secret Order,” focuses on the connecting supernatural secret society. And to launch it with their most discerning and passionate fans, AMC went to Comic-Con to share and tease some fan-favorite character crossovers.
AI is a “creative sparring partner,” a mechanism to find opportunities and expose gaps in the marketing strategy.
The goal is to create a sense of belonging that competitors can’t match. “We’re about superserving fandoms across all touchpoints.” Granito says. Those include “surprise-and-delight moments brought to life in so many forms: an unexpected media placement, showing up at a live event, flooding the feed with interesting social content,” she adds.
AI as the ‘creative sparring partner’
To find and connect with those fans and potential future fans, Granito’s team is increasingly using AI. Granito describes AI as a “creative sparring partner,” a mechanism to find opportunities and expose gaps in the marketing strategy.
Historically, the marketing team might rely on instinct or legacy demographics to position a show. For “Dark Winds,” a psychological thriller following Navajo tribal police, the initial creative strategy was heavily “male-centric,” assuming the show’s themes would resonate primarily with men. However, AMC utilized AI to run predictive analysis on their creative assets and target audiences. The data came back with a counterintuitive insight: The team was potentially missing a massive potential female audience.
“We go into a campaign thinking we’re going to talk about this show this way, and what comes back to us is, ‘You know what? You’re not considering the female storylines,’” Granito says. Acting on this intelligence, AMC pivoted. They developed a “female-focused creative lane” that highlighted different character dynamics and emotional stakes. The result was unambiguous: The AI-informed marketing strategy significantly expanded female viewership of the show and contributed to nearly 30% higher season-over-season subscriber acquisition.
From creative to merch, AI preserves brand equity
In a fragmented media environment, maintaining brand equity is paramount yet often constrained by production costs. Granito highlights AMC’s partnership with Runway, a generative AI video platform, as a game changer for its creative asset production, especially in e-commerce.
“We’ve been using it most specifically around our e-commerce efforts for our shop, marketing the products that we’re out there selling in a way that is much more connected to the look and feel of the shows,” she says.
Prior to generative AI, creating high-fidelity video assets to sell merchandise for a specific show would have been too expensive. Now, the marketing team can generate assets that feel native to the show’s environment, whether it’s postapocalyptic New York City in “The Walking Dead: Dead City” or the gothic atmosphere of “Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe,” without deploying a production unit.
“That’s something we would have never had the budgets to do and support in that way prior to this technology,” Granito says.
The future is predictive
AMC works hard to build fandoms with premium content, and Granito’s team uses AI to find, acquire, and retain the fans. “On the media side, AI-driven audience targeting is really exciting to us, and it’s really helped us uncover incremental audiences for streaming acquisition that we probably wouldn’t have considered otherwise, often converting at lower costs,” Granito says.
Granito’s team also uses predictive analysis on creative and audiences, identifying not just who wants to watch a show, but who is at risk of leaving. “Being able to identify subscribers that are more likely to churn and feed them a very specific message that encourages them to try that next thing is a huge aid in engagement,” Granito says. “And it allows us to scale our efforts in both acquisition and retention.”
AI is helping Granito’s team superserve their superfans. “You can’t deny that these tools drive outcomes,” she says. “They are catalysts for new creative possibilities that ultimately drive stronger engagement with your fans.” Granito’s playbook suggests the future of streaming won’t belong to the biggest algorithm but to the sharpest one.
