A number of AMC’s movie theaters will play NBC broadcasts of some Paris Olympics events on its screens over the summer. The move marks AMC’s latest foray into alternate content, where the theater operator recently saw major success with Taylor Swift and Beyonce’s concert films.
NBCUniversal, holder of the U.S. media rights to the upcoming Olympics, and AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron both announced the news on Wednesday.
It comes after AMC’s chief executive has talked about looking to alternate content as a way to sell more tickets and to fill more movie theaters in recent earnings calls.
Under its agreement with NBCUniversal, roughly 160 AMC theaters across the country will get portions of NBC’s live daytime Olympics coverage over a roughly two-week span to ticket and exhibit, according to a press release from the Comcast-owned media company. The showings will kick off July 27, the day after the opening ceremony of the Games, and conclude Aug. 11.
Aron had said in late February there was “other alternate content that we could focus on other than just concert movies,” specifically mentioning sports and comedy.
“When you think about the movie theater industry, it’s a dirty little secret that the industry only sells about 15% of our tickets,” he told analysts and investors at that time. “And there has to be ways to create alternate content that will not replace what Hollywood’s doing but will augment what Hollywood is doing by filling some of those empty seats that are just sitting there waiting to be filled.”
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