Last week I looked at how demand for streaming content seems to be shifting from movies to TV and how that's helping TV-first streamers like Peacock and Paramount+ grow, which is why I bring up AMC's app this week.
See, the shift to TV content isn't just on the demand side but also a result of big streamers like HBO and Disney going back to releasing new movies to theaters first and streaming second, which wasn't the case when the two launched.
With movies going to back to theaters, and blockbusters being released like it's 2019, people are... going back to theaters! And much like everything else, there's an app for that.
The AMC Theaters app saw its best week of downloads last week, ever, with 154K of downloads from the App Store and Google Play. Not just best post-pandemic, but best overall.
Overall, the app has seen downloads grow since the pandemic put downloads on pause. 2021 was pretty strong, 2022 was pretty consistent, and so far, 2023 is better than both.
While AMC hasn't fully recovered to its pre-pandemic downloads, it's on the right track and is getting very close. The trend isn't consistent and seems to be driven by releases unlike the steady stream of 2019, but that could just be how things will be from now on.
Content is (still) king!
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