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Vulture recently spent an hour talking with Barnett aboutEves stunning rise and her plans to expand the shows audience.
Lets talk aboutKilling Eve.
The shows rating surge in season one was amazing.
First and foremost, the show was so bloody good.
And then, people love to recommend it.
The [sales] numbers for the show on [iTunes and Amazon] have been extraordinary.
We hear anecdotally Hulu are very pleased with the performance of the show on that platform.
But we can share the awards we won [laughs] which were quite phenomenal!
And it was the No.
1 show in the aggregated critics best-of end-of-year lists.
So all of that really goes to create a very fizzy moment forKilling Eve.
Do you think its also an argument for episodic air patterns as a marketing tool?
The week-to-week of it all helped build word of mouth.I do.
Is the hope that the added exposure can make it much bigger?Yeah, it absolutely is.
Its sort of posh, but its broad in its appeal.
It has Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer.
It has a lot of things that we believe can translate across some of our different platforms.
I mean, its all an experiment.
When it goes on air on AMC and BBC America on April 7th, we will see.
Lets talk about your recent promotion and your new role.
When it was announced, you talked about it being a more efficient way to initiate the group.
Explain that to me.
That show also connects with AMC because the storytelling swings are quite big and quite splashy and quite broad.
A lot of your rivals have been consolidating, too.
Turner recently was folded into WarnerMedia, along with HBO.
Viacom has put all their scripted stuff into one linear brand, Paramount web connection.
Is this sort of internal bundling what its all about now?
We profoundly dont believe that theres only room for giants or giantesses.
Theres something quite special about maintaining our distinction as an independent player.
Were not so attracted to blurring-the-edges-between things.
You think about the fact that the company was built on three rejected scripts which were passed by.
AndKilling Eveis indeed is another example of that.
It was a script that was passed on.
WasFleabagfrom Phoebe Waller-Bridge out whenEvecame about?It wasnt quite, actually.
We looked atFleabag before Amazon bought it for BBC America.
We really loved what we saw and we missed the chance to buy it.
We werent really in the business of buying half-hour comedies, but we loved her voice.
So its seeing that talent.
I talk a lot everyone talks a lot about our deep-pocketed competitors, and thats certainly true.
I do think theres room for players of many different sizes.
The possible downside is you risk losing the unique vision of each internet, right?
We want to keep the jagged edges on all of our content.
I dont know that I really believe in friction in the system.
Everyone has a different way of driving results; I really believe in clear direction and great collaboration.
AMC is the mothership of the four channels you oversee.
Whats your sense of where its brand is right now?
So, I think aboutMad Menbeing an unusual choice.
It certainly wasnt the commercial or the obvious or even the predictable choice for that moment.
But it really resonated.
Then I think aboutBreaking Bad.
And then obviouslyThe Walking Dead.
AMC has always been at its best when its just taken a sharp left turn.
So I dont think youll see us imitating anyone, even ourselves, as we make choices going forward.
Its certainly not about being snobby.
Were never going to have the same kinds of traffic on our platforms like some of our bigger competitors.
Voice, freshness, originality can do so much heavy lifting.
That is crucially important for us.
It certainly excited Nick Hornby very much.
Rashida Jones is one of the executive producers.
It becomes a slightly preposterous, picaresque thing.
The way that its playing with storytelling is really exciting.
Thats too bad about the title.
We may well keep it if the show gets green-lit.
Those will be the things we weigh up, so who knows?
Weve just begun to scratch the surface.
I continue to be very interested in that.
And then, we have a lot of ambition on the BBC America side around the natural history shows.
We just signed another deal with BBC Studios, who make the best natural history documentaries in the world.
[Walking Deadshowrunner] Angela Kang has done a sterling job.
You anticipated my next question.
The fact that we are still the No.
1 show by a margin of two to one is quite something.
One of the things that I take such encouragement from is the fact that our ratings are pretty stabilized.
Were feeling pretty good about the development of the show three.
You just never, ever know how difficult deals are.
You think youre close to something youre not; you think youre not, you are.
Its just difficult to know if all the pieces line up.
Do you talk about an endgame for the original series?
Even Dick WolfsLaw and Ordereventually ended.
Do you do talk about doing one more three-year arc and then calling it quits?
Were pretty encouraged with where we are right now.
We know its not going to run forever nothing does but were pretty happy with where we are.
Is that a show you think can grow a lot in season two, ratings-wise?
Its a show thats a perfect expression of itself.
Every single choice its made, its been exactly right.
I dont think any of us expectLodge 49to be a hugely commercial show.
Well see with something likeLodge 49.
You always hope that SVOD platforms will play a discovery role for audiences in finding shows.
You cant always be patient, obviously.
Any thoughts on that?I thought it was a really fantastic swing.
Shows are ending sooner than they used to, and making fewer episodes each season.
Do you think were going to see more of that here?
We did it withMad Menand withBreaking Badon AMC.
We did it withOrphan Blackon BBC America.
Thats something that audiences really care about.
I dont draw any definitive conclusions.
Well continue to shape the show to size it in the right way for its creative bones.
And obviously, theres a factor of audience response.
Sometimes even the things that you love just dont connect with an audience.
Do you have a status update on season five ofBetter Call Saul?
Oh, I missed that.
SoBetter Call Saul, not until 2020.
Thats something else which has become increasingly common these days big shows taking longer breaks between seasons.
But if its what the creator needs and wants …Yes.
Its driven by talent needs, which we would not override if it would result in a worse show.
Do you think thatBetter Call Saul, unlikeWalking Dead, has a more limited shelf life?
The writers, they have a very particular, very clear sense of the arc of their show.
Youre not going to give me anything, are you?No, Im really not.
What can you tell me about where that stands?Really early days.
I truly dont know.
There is such an engaged audience forOrphan Black.
It really is at such a nascent stage, I dont even know much more than that.
But we certainly love the world, we certainly love the makers, so fingers crossed.
One I already mentioned:Kevin Can Fuck Himself, which is the piece from Rashida Jones.
Im really excited about that.
Its a very audacious, ambitious piece about race in America.
Its very, very good.
Hepassed away not so long ago.
Were pulling on one of his works in theDiscworldtrilogy.
Its sort of a procedural, but its also fantasy and its very ambitious around gender and sexuality.
It has a lot of ambition to it that I think could be quite different and quite cool.
and that rectifying biases cant be just a passing fad.
At AMC Networks, our entire staff, at all levels, have gone through unconscious bias training.
And the makeup of our workforce is important.
Aside from everything else, that is utterly uninteresting and lazy.
You said, Its whats on the inside that counts, not the allure of a shiny package.
Do you think TV has gotten too reliant on big projects put together by agencies?
That may be a bit romantic-artist sounding, but its borne out over and over.
Their idea may be huge in its entertainment ambition or it may be more intimate.
Attaching phenomenal talent or starting with phenomenal talent is also fantastic.
You just cant be cynical.
