AMC Networks Head on Glen Mazzara's 'Walking Dead' Exit and 'The Killing's' Surprise Return (Q&A)
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/walking-dead-glen-mazzara-killing-412767
CEO Josh Sapan tells THR about those pesky carriage battles and the drama that could reinvent Sundance Channel.
For about 20 minutes each morning, AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan is focused not on programming or finances but rather his transcendental meditation practice. Finding a temporary Zen place is necessary given the 26-year company veteran’s huge responsibilities, managing a portfolio of networks that includes AMC, IFC, WEtv and Sundance Channel.
His flagship, AMC, parted ways with Glen Mazzara, its second showrunner on The Walking Dead, in late December (he has been replaced by Scott Gimple for the show's fourth season), even as the critically lauded zombie drama became the first cable series to beat all of broadcast’s fare in the key 18-to-49 demographic. Walking Dead, along with IFC’s Portlandia and AMC’s Breaking Bad and Mad Men, helped publicly traded AMC Networks’ net revenue reach $332 million for the third quarter, up 17 percent year-over-year, with advertising revenue rising 9.1 percent.
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The Hollywood Reporter: Why let Mazzara go from The Walking Dead when the show is breaking records? What happened?
Josh Sapan: We love the show, and we admire and cherish the work of everybody involved who made it an extraordinarily well-crafted TV series. … In the case of Glen, we decided mutually to part ways.
THR: But other showrunners have blasted your network. The Shield’s Shawn Ryan said, “It's a real question now why good showrunners should sell to AMC.” How does that make you feel?
Sapan: We really do believe that people who make great TV shows have a rare capability, and we hold them in extraordinarily high regard. Certainly it would be preferable to have as much continuity as possible. We’ll forge ahead and hope to make great shows and be the best place to work.
THR: So those comments don’t concern you?
Sapan: We’ll do the best we can to be an environment where the best creative people can flourish. We’ll hopefully learn from everything we do.
STORY:
Scott Gimple Tapped as New Walking Dead Showrunner
THR: AMC Networks has engaged in a series of carriage battles, with the recent Dish fight getting particularly ugly. Who wins in this sort of public-perception battle?
Sapan: For the most part, they’re just unfortunate, but they’re hard to avoid because of pressures on both sides. The MVPDs [multichannel video programming distributors] are under margin pressure and the programmers need to invest more to compete, and those two things are obviously, to some degree, at conflict today. If there’s a victor -- and I wouldn’t declare a victor -- [it’s us because] I think people want the shows [that we provide].
THR: Is AMC asking too much?
Sapan: Just look at how AMC is performing today in terms of ratings, consumer appeal and then this emerging metric, which assesses what people care about most. We have a good track record for having shows that matter the most to people. That’s genuine value to a retailer, and it should be rewarded. If you look at that constellation of metrics, I think we’d come up at 75 cents [per subscriber], frankly, but history and incumbency have a role in this market. [Before the settlement, Dish had been paying about 50 cents, according to analysts.]
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