• by Wayne Friedman , June 29, 2017

AMC is launching AMC Premiere on Comcast’s Xfinity TV -- returning partly to its early days as a commercial-free network, 

AMC Premiere will be ad-free via Comcast's set-top boxes and will carry a $4.99 price tag for Comcast Xfinity TV customers. It will include big hits like “The Walking Dead,” “Better Call Saul” and “Into the Badlands.”

The companies say ad-free versions of current seasons of original series will be available in real-time. AMC Premiere will also get original "curated" content and a continually refreshed slate of movies.

The availability of the service on AMC apps and AMC.com will roll out in the coming months.

For the better part of two decades starting in the in mid-1980s, AMC -- better known as American Movie Classics -- was a network of classics movies airing ad-free. It was positioned as a premium cable TV channel, somewhat similar to a HBO or Showtime.  

In 1998, it began airing some traditional advertising, moving to more traditional TV commercial breaks in 2002.

For its upfront presentation in April, AMC Networks pitched all five of its live, linear TV networks -- AMC, SundanceTV, BBC America, WEtv and IFC -- as a unified advertising effort.