In 1984 on October 1, the AMC television channel aired for the time as a premium channel, showing only movie classics. It was on in the evening, and frequently held special events such as marathons and sometimes movies that generally were not aired as classics. In 1988 it had been recorded that AMC had 39 million subscribers in the United States, making it one of the most subscribed to premium channels. Two years later, in 1990, AMC started airing 24 hours, and had been picked up by most cable providers.