Anne Rice, Zombies — and Netflix? AMC’s Plan to Outlast the Streaming Giants

By the time AMC launched its Silicon Valley drama The Audacity in April, executives at the basic cable network had already given it an early season two renewal and were doing everything — from sampling the first three episodes on Amazon, Roku and other partners to putting it on FAST channels and even cutting up the premiere for segments on TikTok — to get the show to connect. The series wrapped its season in May with a linear finale that drew less than 200,000 same-day viewers but has outperformed internal expectations on streamer AMC+. The AMC Global Media streaming portfolio, which includes AMC+, niche platforms Acorn TV, All Reality, Allblk, anime hub Hidive, Shudder and Sundance Now, boasts 10.1 million subscribers, with specific AMC+ numbers not broken out.

Now, executives including Dan McDermott, AMC’s chief content officer and president of AMC Studios, are in the process of finding a streaming partner for a second window that can help platform the series starring Billy Magnussen as a troubled tech CEO.

The case of The Audacity is a prime example of the challenges facing the “midsize purveyor of premium content,” in McDermott’s words, the network known for prestige originals like Mad Men and Breaking Bad as well as populist fare including the Walking Dead franchise and Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe. Operating small “in a landscape filled with giant redwoods” means AMC will win some (like the bidding war for the NASCAR-produced scripted drama Thunder Road) and lose some (see FX’s Alien and the new seasons of its 2016 limited series The Night Manager) as the veteran exec is forced to focus on quality over quantity.  

McDermott tells me AMC’s 2024 licensing deal with Netflix has helped originals like Interview With the Vampire and critical favorite Dark Winds find larger audiences and, in turn, build brand awareness of the network while also boosting viewership of new seasons of the AMC Studios-produced slate. With The Audacity, “my hope is that people are going to have discovered the show and, like Succession, Severance, The Office and many high-quality shows that had an okay first season but exploded into the consciousness in season two, we think that’s what’s going to happen,” McDermott tells me.

The married father of one grew up in the Bay Area before moving more than 40 years ago to L.A., where he earned his bachelor’s in film and television at UCLA. He’s worked at Fox (where he helped develop hits including The X-Files, In Living Color, Martin and Married… With Children), spent time as a producer at Di Bonaventura Pictures Television (The Real O’Neals, Jupiter’s Legacy) and was the first president of TV at DreamWorks (Spin City, Freaks and Geeks, Band of Brothers).

After overseeing the scripted partnership between Lionsgate and BBC Studios, he landed at AMC in 2020. Since then, as the company right-sized its operations, he’s risen to its broadest content role ever, overseeing streaming as well as cable networks AMC, BBC America, IFC, SundanceTV and We TV with a dash of film (IFC) to boot.

On the creative side, the diehard 49ers fan has helped usher AMC into sports with NFL docuseries Rise Of, TNA Wrestling and, I can reveal, next year’s Cursed (working title), a six-episode docuseries from A24 that explores the intersection of sports and superstition (think the curse of the Bambino). In the iconic Rice universe (Interview With the Vampire, Mayfair Witches), The Vampire Lestat — aka the third season of Interview — returned June 7 and has been marketed as a brand-new series. The unusual move seems to be working as the series has grown year-over-year after AMC turned its June 2 premiere event into a one-night-only concert that sold out New York’s Beacon Theatre.  

McDermott is frank about AMC’s challenges and bullish about its unique opportunities — from my wide-ranging conversation with him, you’ll learn:

• The strategy behind the unorthodox rebrand of Interview to Vampire Lestat
• Plans to expand Rice’s Immortal Universe — Lestat to Mayfair Witches — and why AMC walked away from Talamasca
• The “three pillars” of an AMC show and the upside of its “bespoke boutique” approach
• The shows that get away — including the drama McDermott offered “the most I’ve ever bid for”
• The sports strategy for a small player — “knowing what we can do and what we can’t” — as league rights skyrocket
• How AMC stays profitable — and it’s not by paying actors $1 million per episode or shooting in L.A.
• The vital flywheel driven by licensing deals — and who’s circling the Walking Dead rights as the Netflix pact expires
• What’s on the horizon for AMC and its Dolan family owners amid media’s active M&A landscape