AMC Networks is poised for another payday from The Walking Dead as its current streaming deal with Netflix nears its end.
During a conference call with Wall Street analysts Wednesday about the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, CEO Kristin Dolan said the company is “in conversations” over a potential renewal. The 177 episodes in the original series, which ended in 2022, are due to return to AMC Networks’ control “in less than a year,” Dolan said.
The series generated nearly half a billion hours of viewership on Netflix in the second half of 2025, she added.
“I can’t say a lot,” Dolan said, declining to respond directly to a question about whether the rights could fetch upwards of $300 million in a new cycle. “As you noted, the rights are very valuable.”
She also didn’t explicitly say whether the talks were exclusively with Netflix, though parties typically have an exclusive window before the IP holder is allowed to test the broader market.
AMC Networks has had “a great relationship with Netflix for well over a decade,” Dolan added, noting the companies first reached a streaming deal for the zombie show back in 2011.
“There’s more to report. We’re just not ready to speak about it now,” Dolan said. “We’re very optimistic about the value of the content and our opportunity to monetize it.”
In 2024, Netflix and AMC Networks struck a deal that saw series such as Interview with the Vampire and Dark Winds land on the streamer. Last fall, the two companies expanded that agreement. The wider deal added a slew of titles to Netflix including Season 2 of Interview with the Vampire, Season 3 of Dark Winds, and the second seasons of The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead: Dead City and Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.
AMC Networks is a textbook example of a traditional media player that benefited from Netflix in the 2010s with shows like Breaking Bad getting stair-step increases in ratings as seasons hit streaming. Viewership dynamics have shifted since then, and AMC Networks has its own streaming flagship, AMC+. Even so, the vast reach of Netflix continues to be attractive to most programmers.
