Josh Sapan

Josh Sapan (born 1950) is a media executive who served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of AMC Networks, as well as the Executive Vice Chairman.

During his 35-year leadership of the company, 25 as CEO, Sapan has been credited with building a number of award-winning shows, movies and media brands.

They include AMC's Mad Men; Breaking Bad and prequel Better Call Saul; The Walking Dead, which resulted in the expansion to 7 different Walking Dead themed TV series; IFC’s Portlandia; SundanceTV’s Rectify; and Bravo’s Inside the Actors Studio and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Sapan studied radio, television and film at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but left school in 1970 moving to Boulder, Colorado and later Berkeley, California.

When he returned to college at UW-Madison, Sapan worked for a company that “four-walled” films, taking 35 mm prints of wilderness films to theaters in small towns in Wisconsin which had been rented by the film company.

He also acted with the Broom Street Theatre in plays such as Bertolt Brechts “The Exception and the Rule”, and in what may have been the first staging of the rock opera "Tommy".

He performed at Broom Street opposite André De Shields who would later go on to star in "The Wiz" on Broadway.

During this time, he also began collecting a substantial number of classic film posters discarded by theaters in Wisconsin.

At UW-Madison, Sapan led two film societies: The New Utrecht film society and Thor Film Society, New Utrecht showed foreign and art films such as Woman in the Dunes and The Bicycle Thief, and Thor showed mainstream movies and college oriented fare, finding particular success with Reefer Madness.

The film society experience led Sapan to purchase two 16 mm projectors and establish a mobile movie exhibition business in the Midwest, operating out of Athens Ohio, known as The Court Street Theatre.

After graduating from UW-Madison in 1975, Sapan returned to New York City and worked various jobs including as a labor union organizer for Local 1114 in the nursing home and hospital industry, which was later subsumed into Local 1199.

He successfully organized The King James nursing home for that union.

During this time, Sapan read a book about the embryonic cable TV industry titled The Wired Nation which predicted the proliferation of cable TV content,” and began to volunteer at UA Columbia Cablevision in Wayne & Pompton townships New Jersey.

Sapan then sold a series of shows to the UA Columbia, producing and hosting a show called Student Film Review in which he interviewed and showed the short films of area filmmakers.

Sapan began his career in cable television at Tele-PrompTer Manhattan Cable TV, which later became Time Warner Cable.

He later joined the premium pay-TV service Showtime, where he led marketing, creative services and on-air programming promotion.

In 1987, Sapan joined the National Entertainment Division of Rainbow Media, a programming subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation, as president of AMC and Bravo, where he spearheaded the development of notable and culturally impactful programs including “Inside the Actors Studio” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

He has led AMC Networks since 1995, including its spin-off from Cablevision in 2011.

He was named CEO of Rainbow Media in 1995.

During this time, Sapan was instrumental in bringing independent film to wide audiences with the creation of independent film distribution label IFC Films and the introduction of day-and-date movie releases.

Sapan is credited with bringing independent films to wide audiences through IFC Films, which he led the launch of in 2000.

At IFC Films he supported the early work of directors Barry Jenkins, Lena Dunham, Lynn Shelton, Christopher Nolan, Mira Nair, Noah Baumbach, Richard Linklater and Steven Soderbergh.

Since its inception in 2000, IFC Films has produced or released more than 1,000 films in the U.S., including those of filmmakers including Lena Dunham's "Tiny Furniture", Christopher Nolan's "Following", Barry Jenkins' "Medicine for Melancholy", Jennifer Kent's "The Babadook", Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding", Steve Soderbergh's "Gay's Anatomy", and Suzanne Bier's "Brothers", who the company would later go on to work with on the award-winning AMC miniseries “The Night Manager".

The label won its first Academy Award in 2000 for Kimberly Pierce's “Boys Don’t Cry,” for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Hilary Swank's performance.

Bravo was sold to NBC, a division of GE for $1.25 billion in 2002.

Under Sapan, Rainbow Media launched WE tv and IFC (Independent Film Channel), and in 2002, sold Bravo to NBC for $1.25 billion in stock and cash.

In 2005, Sapan opened New York City's IFC Center, the brick-and-mortar home for the IFC Films brand and home to DOC NYC, the largest documentary film festival in the United States.

In 2006, Sapan led AMC's expansion into scripted original programming with the launch of “Broken Trail” starring Robert Duvall on Sunday, June 25, the highest rated telecast in network history and the number one cable telecast of the year.

The mini-series went on to be among the most watched program in cable that year and later garnered 4 Primetime Emmy Awards in 2007.

That same year Sapan oversaw the debut of AMC's “Mad Men,” to widespread critical acclaim with the series going on to win 16 Emmys and 5 Golden Globes over the course of its run.

The show was followed shortly after by the premiere of “Breaking Bad” in January 2008, the most critically acclaimed show of all time according to Guinness World Records.

In May 2008, Sapan led the company's acquisition of Sundance Channel from General Electric Company's NBC Universal, CBS Corporation's Showtime Networks, and entities controlled by Robert Redford.

Sapan brought AMC Networks into the targeted streaming business with the launch of Doc Club in 2014, later rebranded Sundance Now, the horror genre streaming service Shudder in 2015, followed by the acquisition of the British Mystery themed Acorn TV, ALLBLK, the first streaming service created for Black film and TV, and AMC+.

Sapan led the overall management of the various businesses within AMC Networks, including the company's national television networks and subscription video on-demand services; AMC Studios, the company’s television production business; IFC Films, its independent film distribution business; AMC Networks International, the company's international programming business, as well as 25/7 Media Holdings LLC (formerly called Levity Live.)

During his tenure, AMC Networks has produced a number of award-winning and critically acclaimed shows with the company’s flagship channel AMC becoming the first basic cable network to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for Mad Men, and the only cable network to win the award four consecutive years, having been nominated 10 years in a row.

Since becoming a public company, Sapan has presided over AMC Networks' increasing net revenues and operating income for seven consecutive years through fiscal year 2017.

Prior to the company's spin-off into AMC Networks, Sapan was president of Rainbow Media's National Entertainment Division (a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation) where he oversaw AMC and Bravo.

Sapan was born to a Jewish family in Queens, New York.

His father worked in advertising, and his mother was an off-off-Broadway actress.

Sapan was raised in Little Neck, Queens and attended P.S. 187.