Kristin Dolan
Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please proceed
Thank you, Nick and thanks everyone for joining this morning. As we navigate a dynamic and complex media environment, we continue to find opportunities in a strategic plan built around programming, partnerships and profitability. Key to this plan is the creation and curation of celebrated films and series, and making them available to viewers wherever they might choose to watch. I’d like to note the significant progress we’ve made against one of our major strategic priorities, generating strong free cash flow. I’m pleased to report that just halfway through the year, we have already delivered $239 million of free cash flow, and we’re well on our way to achieving our full year guidance for this important metric. This is the result of our prudent and disciplined financial management of the business. Our overall strategic approach is evident in our new branded distribution partnership with Netflix, featuring prior seasons of 15 AMC shows on the number one streaming platform in the world. This non-exclusive licensing agreement will give the vast US audience of Netflix subscribers access to our high quality, critically acclaimed content, with the AMC brand clearly represented. We believe that finding a bigger stage for our shows will be a big win for our own platforms and existing distribution partners. Years ago, Breaking Bad demonstrated the power of Netflix to help build awareness and interest in a series that was still launching new seasons on AMC. We’re looking forward to seeing our core franchises and most important current shows tap into this same powerful engine for audience expansion. Unique partnerships like this demonstrate that AMC Networks is an innovative and nimble company unencumbered by the constraints and limited options facing others in our industry. We have the freedom to work with anyone, and we have a continued commitment to nurturing strong brands and quality storytelling supported by a sustainable and predictable wholesale business model. In addition to new content partnerships, we’re growing distribution of our linear networks and AMC Plus through new internet delivered skinny bundles. During the quarter, we expanded our partnership with Philo, which launched the Ad-supported version of AMC Plus in their new core package. And the response from consumers has been tremendous with consistent week-over-week subscriber gains since the launch in June. Additionally, all of our linear networks, including BBC News, are part of Optimum’s new entertainment TV package, demonstrating the continued strength of our networks in this evolving environment. Viewership of our branded channels in the increasingly important FAST and AVOD categories continues to grow. We now have 18 FAST channels live on 11 platforms, totaling 114 active channel feeds to supplement our linear reach. We are also implementing our partnership strategy internationally, making our high quality content available to viewers through licensing and distribution arrangements with Top Tier partners in territories beyond our own footprint. We’ve recently expanded AMC’s brand presence in the UK through partnerships with Sky for The Walking Dead Universe, the BBC for our Anne Rice Immortal Universe and ITV’s Ad-support in the streaming service ITVX which carries several of our branded AVOD offerings. In keeping with our wholesale approach, our belief in the power of partnerships and desire for financial predictability, we recently entered into an agreement with Comcast Technology Solutions to manage most of our content distribution domestically and around the world. With CTS as our comprehensive back-end solutions provider, we can leverage Comcast’s scale and best-in-class technology to deliver our content much more effectively and economically than we can on our own. In terms of the advertising upfront, I’m pleased with our performance as the market continues to transform. We’ve been able to leverage our well defined and fan focused networks to achieve favorable pricing and volume across linear and digital distribution. We continue to put high quality shows on linear television, particularly AMC on Sundays and WE tv on Fridays, creating value for our advertising and affiliate partners. These examples underscore our position as a sought after and desirable business partner across the industry, enabling us to expand and deepen our distribution and advertising alliances. Our content drove several operational and programming highlights in the quarter which I’ll share before I turn the call over to Patrick for a more detailed look at our financials. The strong performances of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, and the second season of Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, both of which received enormous critical acclaim, drove AMC Plus to achieve all-time highs in viewership this quarter. The penultimate episode of Interview, a trial with a devastating outcome, has become a fan favorite and instant classic. We have renewed Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire and The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon for Third Seasons. Both series were part of our very loud and exciting presence at Comic-Con in late July. We were thrilled with the response from our engaged fans at this event which is an important annual focal point for our company and programming franchises. In other programming news, we recently greenlit a third Anne Rice Series focused on a secretive society called The Tala Masca, and announced a new series from AMC Studios set inside the bubble of Silicon Valley from Jonathan Glaser, a sought after writer who previously worked on Better Call Saul and Succession. Horror films from IFC and Shutter were also represented at Comic-Con. I would like to recognize the incredible year we are having with films in the horror genre, with titles like Late Night With The Devil, In A Violent Nature, VHS 85 [ph], and others, we have dominated Top 10 lists and further solidified these brands as being synonymous with the very best in horror, both at the Box Office and on streaming. This level of fan credibility and community is the foundation upon which all our targeted services are built, and demonstrates our strength and unique value proposition. It is worth noting that in the second quarter, both Acorn TV and our HIDIVE anime service implemented price increases with an insignificant impact on churn due to our highly engaged and brand loyal subscribers. On WE tv, our new music competition show Deb’s House was a strong performer for both, the linear network and our all black streaming service. The strength of originals such as Love After Lockup franchise, Deb’s House and Mama June have solidified WE tv’s standing as the number one cable network on Friday nights for black adults, 25 to 54, and black women, 25 to 54. We’re also very excited to see the return of The Braxtons, one of the founding families of reality television, with a new series premiering tonight. In addition to supporting our great content, we continue to drive profitability by refining our organization and operations. Under the leadership of Stephanie Mitchko, our EVP of Global Media Operations and Technology, we’re in the midst of a global transformation to streamline functions and modernize content distribution across all platforms, both domestically and internationally, which we realized through our new agreement with Comcast Technology Solutions. We’ve also reorganized our programming and scheduling teams into a consolidated unit across all brands and platforms. Under our CMO, Kim Granito, we’ve optimized and integrated marketing, media, branding, research and our award winning content room efforts. As noted earlier, it is a dynamic and complex time in media. Even as much larger players are facing existential challenges, AMC Networks is successfully pursuing a strategy built on our proven ability to make great shows to meet viewers wherever they are, and to find new ways to support and monetize our content in a fragmented world. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Patrick.
Patrick O’Connell: Thank you, Kristin. As the new media landscape continues to develop, we remain consistent in our strategic and financial priorities. We are leveraging our endemic strength as an innovative and nimble premium programmer, while employing disciplined financial management as the industry continues to evolve. We’ve also made significant progress in optimizing our investments, driving free cash flow and preserving the strength of our balance sheet. We remain on-track to achieve our financial outlook for the year. In just the first six months of 2024 we have already generated more free cash flow than we did in all of 2023, setting us up to achieve our outlook of the year-over-year free cash flow growth for 2024, and approximately $0.5 billion of cumulative free cash flow by the end of 2025. On to our second quarter consolidated results. Consolidated revenue decreased 8% to $626 million in the quarter, excluding prior period revenue from 25/7 Media and the return of rights from Hulu, and the current period revenue related to a one-time adjustment payment at AMC NI [ph], second quarter revenue decreased 4%. Adjusted operating income was $153 million, representing a 24% margin, and we generated $95 million of free cash flow in the quarter. Moving on to our segment level financials. Domestic operations revenue decreased 7% to $538 million, excluding revenue related to the return of rights from Hulu in the prior year period, domestic operations revenue decreased 4%. Subscription revenue of $323 million decreased 3% due to a 12% decline in affiliate revenue which is primarily driven by a decrease in linear subscribers, and was partially offset by streaming revenue growth of 9% which was driven by both subscribers and rate [ph]. At quarter end, we had 11.6 million streaming subs, and we are beginning to see the benefits of recent price increases at our targeted services, Acorn and HIDIVE flow through the P&L. Content licensing revenue was $67 million driven by the timing and availability of deliveries in the quarter. As you may recall, in the second quarter of last year, we negotiated the return of certain rights with Hulu which resulted in a pull-forward of approximately $20 million of revenue. Excluding this, licensing revenue increased 10% year-over-year. Our premium programming remains sought after, and we are seeing strength in licensing as evidenced by the recent domestic and international activity that Kristin detailed earlier. Advertising revenue of $149 million improved sequentially versus the first quarter. On a year-over-year basis, advertising revenue declined 11%, this was primarily due to lower linear ratings, and was partially offset by continued digital growth. Domestic operations AOI was $155 million for the quarter, with a healthy margin of 29%. The year-over-year decrease in AOI was largely driven by the revenue decline in the quarter which was partially offset by continued cost discipline. I’ll now briefly touch on our international segment. Second quarter international revenue was $90 million, and included $13 million of advertising revenue related to a one-time adjustment payment. Excluding 25/7 Media and the adjustment payment, international revenues decreased 4%. On an apples-to-apples basis, second quarter advertising revenues grew 18%, largely due to new streaming offerings including our new AVOD offerings on ITVX in the UK. International AOI was $29 million for the quarter. Excluding the adjustment payment, international AOI was $16 million with a margin of 21%. Moving to the balance sheet. We continue to believe that the proactive and prudent management of our balance sheet affords us valuable flexibility, as well as the ability to fully focus on the evolution of our business as the new video landscape continues to take shape. In addition to the significant refinancing activity that we discussed in detail on our last call, more recently in June, we completed an offering of $144 million of 4.25% [ph] convertible senior notes in 2029 as we sought to capitalize on the volatility in our stock price and add additional liquidity to our balance sheet. We ended the second quarter with net debt of approximately $1.6 billion and a consolidated net leverage ratio of 2.8 times. As a reminder, we have meaningfully extended our maturity profile and pushed out all bond maturities to 2029. We ended the quarter with approximately $1 billion of total liquidity, including more than $800 million of cash on the balance sheet, and our undrawn of $175 million revolver. We continue to appreciate the flexibility and optionality that our cash position affords us. We believe our capital structure will continue to present attractive opportunities for us to deploy cash in accretive manner, benefiting both the equity and the credit overtime. On that note, in the second quarter we repurchased 15 million principal amount of our 4.25% [ph] senior notes due 2029 for approximately $10 million, capturing approximately $5 million of discount. On the topic of capital allocation, our philosophy remains prudent and opportunistic. First, we look to support the business by creating and acquiring compelling programming that resonates with our audiences while maintaining healthy levels of profitability and cash flow generation. Second, we look to improve our balance sheet by reducing gross debt and optimizing our capital structure. Third, M&A and share repurchases or dividends remain further down our current priority list. Moving on to our outlook. We are pleased to reiterate our outlook today, starting with free cash flow. We continue to expect grow free cash flow year-over-year in 2024, and by 2025 we expect to have generated cumulative free cash flow of approximately $0.5 billion. Regarding revenue, we continue to expect total revenue of approximately $2.4 billion for the full year. Notwithstanding that in terms of our initial expectations for the full year, as discussed on our fourth quarter call regarding the specific revenue lines that underpin our full year revenue outlook, we are seeing some shifting in the composition of our full year revenue. Moving to AOI. For 2024 we continue to expect consolidated AOI of $550 million to $575 million. Continued streaming and digital advertising growth, as well as prudent expense management, remain a focus despite continued revenue headwinds in the business. Our content investments are at appropriate levels to best support our business and drive free cash flow. For the full year 2024, we anticipate that cash programming spend to be approximately $1 billion, and that programming amortization will be similar to 2023 levels. I’ll now dive a little deeper into some of the nuances related to programming amortization. In 2024 we continue to experience comparably lower levels of amortization expense, the result of strategic programming reassessments that occurred at the end of 2022. Additionally, carryover amortization of prior year programming investments continue to flow through the P&L. Given these dynamics, as we look to next year, we anticipate a year-over-year increase in programming amortization expense for 2025. It is important to note that this is non-cash and does not impact our free cash flow expectation for next year, and we remain highly confident in our ability to achieve cumulative free cash flow across 2024 and 2025 of approximately $0.5 billion. I’ll close with what I’ve said in the past, AMC Networks continues to employ a back-to-basics approach that emphasizes broad distribution of our content and brands across platforms and prioritizes near-term monetization. And at the same time, takes advantage of our unique position as a nimble and innovative premium programmer. We’ll continue to allocate our capital wisely to ensure we maintain a healthy balance sheet, remain extremely disciplined on expenses, and balance appropriate levels of programming investment against available monetization opportunities. With that operator, please open the line for questions.