You can now get a cheaper AMC Plus subscription but you’ll have to put up with ads

How much would you pay to watch The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon? Is nine bucks too much? How about five? Because it, and AMC Plus’ other shows, just got a whole lot more affordable with the introduction of a new, ad-supported version of AMC Plus.

Instead of the $8.99 a month you’d pay for the normal service, the ad-supported tier is just $4.99 a month. How much advertising are we talking about? AMC says not much: five ads an hour, plus sponsored bits over the credits, ad-break trivia and other ways for people to try and sell you stuff.

And unlike some ad-supported services *cough* Freevee *cough* there’s the same content selection as the full paid streaming service. When you consider that AMC Plus includes Shudder, Sundance Now, IFC Films Unlimited, BBC America and Sundance TV too, that’s a lot of TV for not a lot of money.

Why is AMC offering a cheaper AMC Plus?

It’s all about numbers. Some people simply won’t pay the full price for another subscription to the best streaming services when they’re already paying for plenty. But if you drop the price low enough in exchange for not-too-much advertising, you can tempt many of those people to subscribe. And the more people you can tempt, of course, the more money you can make from advertising.

The new tier means that AMC is now a player in the fast-growing FAST (Free, Ad-Supported Television) sector, and it claims to have “dozens of advertisers” signed on. It’s also focusing more on niche markets than trying to be all things to all genders. Speaking to Wall Street in recent weeks, CEO Kristin Dolan said that AMC Plus was “more targeted towards specific genres and specific types of subscribers”. That targeting, along with not paying too much for programming in order to keep costs low, appears to be paying off.

If you’d rather not pay full price for AMC PLus but don’t want the ads either, there is another option: an annual subscription. That saves 20% on the usual pay monthly price, so instead of $8.99 a month it works out as roughly $6.99. There isn’t currently an annual option for the ad-supported tier.

Those prices are for subscribing directly with AMC, but many TV providers offer it as part of a bundle and you can also add a subscription through Apple TV Plus, Amazon or Roku. It’s worth keeping your eye out for deals: from time to time these services offer discounts that could cut the cost of the ad-free tier too.

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