In late 2022, AMC announced to staff plans to lay off about 20% of their workforce. This comes as cord cutting has continued to cut into the profits at AMC.
According to a memo the Wall Street Journal got access to from AMC Chairman James Dolan, AMC’s streaming plans are failing. The memo indicates AMC had believed losses from cord cutting would be offset by streaming gains, but that expectation failed to become a reality. Dolan’s memo, per the WSJ, said that “mechanisms for the monetization of content are in disarray.”
This comes as many media companies like AMC had expected streaming to be a one for one replacement for cable TV. Unfortunately for them, a growing number of cord cutters are skipping live TV streaming services like Hulu, Sling TV, YouTube TV, and more in favor of on-demand services like Paramount+, Disney+, and more.
According to recent numbers, even when counting cord cutting services like Hulu with Live TV, YouTube TV and more, subscribers are down 6% in the 3rd quarter of 2022.
AMC in particular, is struggling right now because it lacks live events that many other networks like Turner and Disney have. AMC has no live news network and no sports networks, the few bright spots in TV advertising right now. Because of this, AMC is being hit very hard by cord cutting and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.