Exclusive Interview: AMC Networks’ Bruce Tuchman

PREMIUM: Bruce Tuchman, the president of AMC and Sundance Channel Global, provides World Screen with his view on the opportunities still to be found in pay-TV markets worldwide.

WS: Tell me about the thinking behind the strategy to make AMC a global brand.
TUCHMAN: When we acquired Chellomedia, one of the assets there was a more or less fully distributed global brand in MGM. We had the opportunity to say, What do we do next? Our idea was, let’s give all the loyal customers of this MGM Channel something more. We’ll continue to offer MGM movies, [plus] original programming from arguably the most prestigious source of original fiction narrative programming in the last few years. And we’ll open the offering of movies up to other studios as well. So we’re taking an existing, well-distributed network, but we’re going to refresh it, revitalize it, fortify it with what is our company’s flagship brand: AMC.

WS: What are some of the benefits you’ve derived from being a newer player in the global channels business?
TUCHMAN: Sometimes there’s a burden of legacy infrastructure and ways of doing business. When you look at Sundance, for instance, we’re able to take top-of-the-line technologies, transmission paths, etc. and deploy them from day one. Sometimes in huge markets, channels will have thousands of decoder boxes, so the shift to get to today’s mode of delivering entertainment is much harder. The critical success point for AMC Networks has been this idea of opportunism, flexibility, and the fact that we are a product of, and responsible to, the pay-TV ecosystem. We’re on the front line, knowing what’s going on and trying to get ahead of the curve to continue to bring out channels that cable operators, satellite providers and IPTV platforms really want and will pay a premium for.

WS: Is an accompanying HD feed and catch-up service essential today when introducing a new service to operators?
TUCHMAN: It’s what operators want. The programmer industry is divided between those that embrace and those that resist. The consumer wants us to embrace it. We see it through our research, through our own personal habits. We see where the markets are going. We really want our operators to be able to offer their customers the ability to watch a great show like Rectify at their convenience.

WS: Do you envision doing any local programming for the AMC and Sundance brands globally?
TUCHMAN: We’ve been acquiring a lot of local product for Sundance. As we move into the rebrand of MGM to AMC, we’ll look at that as well. Sundance has been very actively acquiring product, including fiction series, from all parts of the world. We have Mr Selfridge in the first window exclusively in Latin America. We went to HBO Latin America and found a great show, Prófugos, and brought it to Spain. In Latin America we have Borgen from Scandinavia, and in the Benelux region the Australian series Rake. The operators and consumers are going to value us for what’s in the AMC Networks pipeline, but we will also curate [content].

WS: What are the major opportunities you see for AMC Networks globally?
TUCHMAN: What I’ve seen over the years is a profound distortion in international markets compared to the U.S. When these international markets developed, the [Hollywood] studios had the critical mass of content, a lot of negotiating power, and they wound up occupying a lot of bandwidth—as a result the offering [on international pay-TV channels] is either so skewed to the big U.S. studios, or it is very local. Our premise is, beyond the latest, broadest releases from the studios and local variety shows or telenovelas or game shows or news, there’s a world of product that has been created. Discerning consumers want to see something more sophisticated, more interesting, something that’s not the usual fare. That's opened a wide opportunity for us in these markets, because it’s an under-exploited niche.