AMC Networks

AMC Networks Inc. is an American mass media and entertainment corporation headquartered in 11 Penn Plaza, New York City. The company owns and operates the eponymous cable channel, BBC America, IFC, Sundance TV, and We TV. It also owns the art house movie theater IFC Center in New York City; the independent film companies Independent Film Company and RLJE Films, the anime licensor Sentai Filmworks, the premium subscription streaming services AMC+, IFC Films Unlimited, Acorn TV, Allblk, Shudder, Sundance Now, Philo, and Hidive, and a minority interest in the Canadian production studio Shaftesbury Films.

The company operates in Europe and Latin America through its international division, AMC Networks International. The current incarnation of the company, founded as a publicly traded company in July 2011, is the successor to the now defunct Rainbow Media Holdings, LLC (or alternately Rainbow Programming Holdings), which was originally founded in 1980 as a subsidiary of Cablevision (which itself is also defunct), and is majority-owned and controlled by the Dolan family.

Origins of the company go back to 1980 when its predecessor, Rainbow Media, was first founded and was initially a joint venture between the cable television companies Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications, and Daniels & Associates, yet its first service, a hybrid service, was launched from partnership was launched later on December 8, 1980, which broadcast nightly on satellite time subleased from the National Christian Network, and consisted of featured culture events from what is now Bravo on Sunday and Monday nights, and adult-oriented B movie network Escapade for the rest of the week. Due to the involvement of the four cable companies, the new service quickly gained subscribers. By July 1981, both channels expanded their offerings to seven nights a week. In August 1981, Playboy Enterprises became half-owner of Escapade which introduced a new programming block to the channel in early 1982. By the end of that year the network would relaunch as The Playboy Channel.

In the years that followed, the three other cable companies would exit the partnership, leaving Cablevision as the sole owner of Rainbow by 1983. Cablevision transferred control of its previously launched regional sports network SportsChannel New York to Rainbow. In 1983, three other regional sports networks were acquired: PRISM New England (soon to be relaunched as SportsChannel New England), Philadelphia-based PRISM, and Chicago-based SportsVision. Playboy also bought out Rainbow's share in The Playboy Channel, although it would continue to market the channel for the next few years.

Rainbow launched what would later be known as American Movie Classics (now known as AMC) in late 1984. Upon AMC's launch the network initially featured "classic" pre-1970 movies. Rainbow and Turner Broadcasting System entered into a dispute after the network launched, and Turner launched a competitor to AMC known as Turner Classic Movies. Cablevision began packaging AMC and Bravo together as the Rainbow Service. Near the end of 1984, CBS and Cablevision announced a deal to have CBS take 50% ownership in the Rainbow Service and Rainbow's marketing. The agreement also gave CBS partial ownership in the regional sports properties which had already become a joint venture with The Washington Post (the Post did not have ownership in Bravo or AMC). In 1986, Tele-Communications Inc. purchased a stake in AMC. Through this deal, the network which had 300,000 subscribers was able to greatly expand carriage to most of TCI's 3.9 million subscribers. Long Island cable news service News 12 was also launched in 1986.

CBS and Cablevision parted ways in 1987. In 1988, Rainbow's SportsChannel would make its largest programing deal, gaining national television rights for the National Hockey League. Cablevision gained a new partner that year, National Broadcasting Company, Inc. (then a subsidiary of General Electric), which obtained 50% ownership in Rainbow. Through this partnership, five additional regional sports networks were created in the Bay Area, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. The partnership also produced the Olympics Triplecast, a pay-per-view service providing additional coverage of the 1992 Summer Olympics.

1994 saw the launch of an American feed of the Canadian music channel MuchMusic USA, in partnership with CHUM Limited (who would launch a Canadian version of Bravo the year after), and the Independent Film Channel. Years later would CHUM sell their stake to Rainbow in 2000 and revoked their license for the MuchMusic name, which culminated into a rebrand as Fuse in 2003. Fuse became a part of MSG Media in 2010, and has since been spun off as Fuse Media.

In 1997, Romance Classics, which is now We TV, a channel that had been in planning for over five years and had its launch date pushed back multiple times, was finally launched. But Rainbow's largest venture that year was the merger of SportsChannel into Fox Sports Net. Rainbow retained varying ownership interests in all of the former SportsChannel networks except PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia, which were both shut down to make way for the first Comcast SportsNet. Over the next decade, all of these networks except SportsChannel NY (then Fox Sports New York) were gradually sold off. Fox Sports New York was then transferred to the MSG Media division and rebranded MSG+.