By Zachary M. Seward

It’s good to be AMC Networks right now. The season premiere of AMC’s Breaking Bad drew 5.9 million viewers in the United States on Sunday night, double the figure for its premiere a year ago. That kind of audience growth is rare, and it’s even less common for such a dark drama, chronicling the transformation of a chemistry teacher into a ruthless methamphetamine kingpin.

But while ratings are worth celebrating, they aren’t the best measure of success by the weird economics of the television industry. In fact, AMC had prevailed well before Sunday night’s Breaking Bad premiere, and it did so while violating many of the outdated assumptions that tend to govern cable TV.

AMC makes most of its money not from advertising but distribution — what it charges cable companies for the right to carry its content. These affiliate fees, sometimes called retransmission fees, are a strong indicator of a network’s worth: The more valued it is by cable customers, the more money it can extract from cable companies. And by that measure, AMC is doing very well, indeed.

Read More AMC Is Thriving by Breaking the Rules of Legacy TV – Zachary M. Seward – The Atlantic.