Over-the-air television had already served as the principal second-run showcase for Hollywood films from the mid-1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. However, the number of over-the-air TV stations in any one market limited the possible showcases for classic Hollywood films. Film buffs in major markets could watch independent television stations that frequently counterprogrammed with Hollywood movies, but they were generally displeased with the ways in which stations sanitized the presentations of theatrical films, cut them to fit them into prescribed time slots, and interrupted moving moments with blaring advertisements. With the emergence of cable television in the 1980s, AMC offered a niche for these fans, who sometimes referred to the channel as the “Metropolitan Museum of classic movies.” Indeed, AMC created a “repertory” cinema operable by remote control.

AMC began in October 1984 as a pay service but switched onto cable’s “basic tier” in 1987, when the network had grown to 7 million subscribers in 1,000 systems across the United States. This growth curve continued, and by the end of 1989 AMC had doubled its subscriber base. Two years later it could count 39 million subscribers. As of January 2002, AMC’s parent company, Rainbow Media Holdings (itself a subsidiary of Cablevision System and NBC), reported that the number of American households with access to AMC had reached more than 82 million.

No cable service in the United States has received more favorable reviews. Critics applaud AMC’s around-the-clock presentation of Hollywood favorites and undiscovered gems. AMC also has created first-run documentaries that focus on various aspects of the movie business, such as a corporate profile of Republic Studios, a compilation history entitled Stars and Stripes: Hollywood and World War II, and a history of boxing movies labeled Knockout: Hollywood’s Love Affair with Boxing. As of 2002 AMC also featured three original series about films and the film industry: Backstory, a weekly program about the making of specific Hollywood pictures; Hollywood Lives and Legends, which airs every weeknight and presents documentaries about movie studios, themes such as “Hollywood interpretations of the Bible,” and on- and off-screen film personalities; and the weekly series Cinema Secrets, which explores how special effects are used in various film projects. Other programming on AMC includes comedy shorts featuring such performers as the Three Stooges or the Little Rascals.

AMC has sometimes filled slots between films with old Twentieth Century Fox Movietone Newsreels, allowing fans to watch once again as a bored John Barrymore puts his profile into the cement in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater or Shirley Temple accepts her special Oscar, then asks her mother if it is time to go home.

In other ways, too, AMC has unabashedly promoted its nostalgia-as-escapism. Consider a late 1980s marketing device by AMC and the local cable system in Wichita Falls, Texas, designed to launch AMC in that market. More than 200 couples dance in a room, painted black and white, while the sound of Gordy Kilgore’s big band playing Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” fills the air.

By June 1988 AMC was successful enough to begin publishing a magazine. An old-time classic star graces the cover of each issue of AMC Magazine; the first featured Katharine Hepburn, later came James Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, John Wayne, and Henry Fonda, among others. Articles typically discuss the stars of the “golden age” of Hollywood (keyed to AMC showings). The magazine also includes listings of that month’s AMC offerings, highlighting festivals constructed around stars, series (such as the Charlie Chan films), and themes (“Super Sleuths,” for example).

However, there are limitations to the successes and benefits of AMC. Unless a new preservation print has been made (as was the case with the silent 1927 classic Wings), AMC runs television prints. These versions of the films are often incomplete, having been edited during the 1950s and 1960s to eliminate possibly offensive languages and images. Often TV prints have been cut to run a standard 88 minutes, timed to fit into two-hour time slots, with time allotted for advertisements. AMC runs these incomplete prints, deciding not to spend the necessary moneys to create a complete version.

Fans rarely complain about the TV prints, however, and cable operators herald AMC as what is best about cable television. The channel has replaced the repertory cinemas that used to dot the United States’s largest cities and college towns and serves as a fine example of specialized niche programming in cable TV of the 1990s. As the 21st century commenced, its only serious rival was Turner Classic Movies.