AMC Networks has started to roll out the ad-supported version of its streaming service AMC+. The new tier will cost $4.99 a month and include a “light ad load” of fewer than five minutes of commercials per hour.
Streaming services and customers alike have been adapting to rising inflation over the last year. A combination of streamers hiking prices and customers trying to budget as led to an increased interest in ad-supported video on demand, or AVOD, and free ad-supported streaming TV, or FAST.
Time spent watching AVOD and FAST services increased 6% from 2022 to 2023 according to TiVo’s Video Trends report. In addition, ad-supported tiers of subscription video on demand services, SVOD, have increased. Netflix, Peacock, Hulu, Paramount+ and Max all reported more subscribers to their ad-supported tiers.
“This ad-supported version of AMC+ gives consumers more flexibility while bringing ads to the only piece of our distribution ecosystem that wasn’t already ad-supported,” Kim Kelleher, chief commercial officer of AMC Networks, said in a statement.
AMC said the new tier will include all the same shows and movies as the ad-free version as well as AMC’s original series and franchises like The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, A Discovery of Witches and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire.
With the AMC+ bundle, ad-tier customers will get full access to Shudder, Sundance Now, IFC Films Unlimited, AMC, BBC America, IFC, and Sundance TV linear networks.
AMC announced plans to launch a cheaper version of its AMC+ service in April in hopes of offsetting losses. The network lost about 300,000 members between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, which dropped the total number of customers from 11.8 million to 11.5 million.
You can still subscribe to AMC+’s ad-free version for $8.99 a month or $83.88 annually.