AMC Global Media Inc. (AMCX) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to AMC Global Media's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the call over to Nicholas Seibert, SVP, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the AMC Global Media Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us this morning are Kristin Dolan, Chief Executive Officer; Kim Kelleher, President and Chief Commercial Officer; Dan McDermott, Chief Content Officer and President of AMC Studios; and Hozefa Lokhandwala, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin with prepared remarks, and then we'll open the call for questions. Today's call may include certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of risks and uncertainties. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made today. We will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call. The required definitions and reconciliations can be found in the press release we issued this morning, which is available on our website at amcglobalmedia.com. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Kristin.

Thanks, Nick, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to start with some news that underscores the value of our owned IP and the importance of our studio business. This morning, we announced a global co-exclusive licensing agreement with Netflix for the streaming rights to the entire Walking Dead universe, all 7 series and 371 episodes. This agreement expands our relationship with one of our most important partners and creates a global streaming home for this landmark franchise. It also allows us to bring the original, The Walking Dead series to AMC+ for the first time. This new agreement highlights the strength of our studio model and ability of our owned IP to create long-term value for both AMC Global Media and our partners. Dark Winds is another example of how our content continues to find new audiences and generate value across platforms. Season 4 launched on Netflix earlier this month as part of our branded AMC collection and as we've seen with prior seasons, immediately reached their U.S. top 10 list. In the U.S. and around the world, our content is the foundation of partnerships with a broad range of industry leaders, including Sky, Deutsche Telekom, BBC, Canal+, HBO Max, ITV, Netflix, Amazon and so many others. As we noted on our last call, we expected the second quarter to be the low point for AOI with stronger performance in the back half of the year. Results were in line with these expectations. At the same time, we're pleased to share today that we are raising our guidance for the full year, which Hozefa will discuss in more detail. Our updated outlook layers in the Walking Dead licensing agreement as well as subscriber acquisition that came in slightly below our expectations in the first half of the year as geopolitical events and high-profile sports programming captured outsized consumer attention. Our streaming business is built around bringing passionate fans the content they love. This strategy creates an engaged and loyal base of subscribers with deep connections to our brands. We take a long-range view of this business and the critical role our distribution partners play across all of our platforms: streaming, linear and FAST. As streaming and linear continue to converge, an increasing number of viewers experience our services through hard bundled arrangements. This combined distribution delivers additional value to the customer, strengthens our affiliate relationships and builds revenue partnerships focused on the future. Across Charter and Philo, AMC+ and All Reality have already generated 2.3 million activations. And DirecTV recently launched AMC+ as a hard bundle offering in their entertainment genre package, which will further contribute to the growth of this category. We recently renewed with major distributors, Comcast and YouTube. Our new long-term agreement with YouTube includes the distribution of our 7 streaming services, 5 linear networks and many of our FAST channels as well as the future launch of our networks in YouTube TV's genre packages. Our recent affiliate activity demonstrates the value distributors see in our portfolio and the impact of our long-range view. Over the last 12 months, we have renewed with 4 of the 5 major domestic MVPDs, including Comcast, DirecTV, DISH and YouTube. Our upfront discussions are progressing well with strong client engagement and constructive conversations across categories. Excluding the impact of an isolated technical issue in the second quarter, domestic advertising revenue decreased in the mid-single digits. We remain encouraged by the notable improvements in advertising revenue trends and strong growth in digital in the first half of the year. Our linear brands continue to resonate with viewers. Franchise reality hits like Love After Lockup and the new series This Is Poly are delivering strong viewership and reinforcing the power of our original programming. The majority of our linear networks have seen ratings growth in prime time from the previous quarter, led by gains of 21% at VTV. On AMC, TNA Wrestling's Thursday Night Impact just hit an all-time ratings high earlier this month and is bringing new and live viewers to the network. Acorn TV was one of the earliest streamers built around a specific genre, in this case, international crime dramas and mysteries. Last year, we launched an effort to reenergize Acorn with a slate of new shows and iconic talent, and the results have exceeded our expectations. We just renewed the breakout hit Art Detectives for a second season. Inspector Ellis, starring Sharon D. Clarke has returned with big viewership gains over season 1. In addition to the strong performance at Acorn, our other services continue to super serve their distinct audiences. In the second quarter, we saw a sequential improvement in retention and a double-digit increase in engagement across our portfolio of streaming services even as we implemented price increases. Now for a few additional programming highlights. We're coming off another successful San Diego Comic-Con where the strength of our franchises was on full display. We announced the fourth season renewal of Anne Rice's interview with The Vampire after The Vampire Lestat delivered higher AMC+ viewership versus the prior season and strong fan and critical response. We also celebrated the Season 3 launch of The Walking Dead: Dead City with a standing room-only Hall H panel and screening that demonstrated the strong ongoing fan engagement and cultural impact of the series. Next month, we start production on Thunder Road, the multigenerational racing drama starring Dennis Quaid that we are making in partnership with NASCAR. This series, which has already generated strong advertiser interest, will be produced at our studio facility in Senoia, Georgia, the long-time home of The Walking Dead franchise. In addition to creating programs for our own platforms, our studio team is actively developing projects with a range of leading distributors. Producing for others is a natural offshoot of our internal development process. You may recall that we developed and produced the breakout Apple TV+ hit Silo. The strength of our studio operation is rooted in production expertise, enduring creative relationships and a long track record of creating stories that resonate with audiences. We look forward to sharing more details on these projects as they progress. Since joining the company in June, our new CFO, Hozefa Lokhandwala, has hit the ground running. He's a great addition to our leadership team and brings deep experience across media, strategy and finance. Before I hand the call over to Hozefa, I want to take a brief moment to thank all of our partners for recognizing the value and impact of our world-class content. I'd also like to thank our team for their continued execution as we expand the audiences for our content and create additional value for our company. Hozefa, over to you.

Thank you, Kristin. As the media landscape continues to evolve, AMC Global Media stands out as a differentiated player with the assets and capabilities to succeed in this dynamic time. Having spent the past 1.5 months digging in, I'm particularly impressed by the company's world-class studio, impactful portfolio of owned IP and franchises, the distinct valuable brands that drive monetization across multiple channels, including streaming, linear, FAST, AVOD as well as our strong licensing business, which partners with third-party distributors that value our content. It is an exciting time to have joined the team, and I'm happy to be on the call today. As Kristin mentioned, we recently entered into a new content licensing agreement with Netflix for the co-exclusive global streaming rights to The Walking Dead Universe, a powerful indication of the lasting global demand for this IP and a testament to our ability to build out valuable franchises. At the conclusion of the license period, the rights to this highly sought-after franchise revert back to us. With a license period of 5 years and total contracted license fees of $500 million, this agreement provides us visibility over a multiyear time horizon. License fees are payable by Netflix over the license period and quarterly cash installments on a title-by-title basis, with payments beginning at the start date for each individual title. In 2026, we expect to receive cash payments of approximately $25 million. Looking further out, we anticipate annual cash payments of approximately $100 million in '27, '28, '29 and '30 with the remainder due in 2031. As a result of the 5-year payment schedule, we will recognize revenue based on the present value of the future payments and expect to recognize total revenue of approximately $445 million over the life of the agreement. We expect that approximately $200 million to $225 million of that revenue will be recognized in 2026 and in 2027. I'll have more to share regarding the financial implications of this agreement and how it benefits our full year outlook later in my remarks. Moving on to our second quarter consolidated results. Net revenue declined 9% year-over-year to $547 million. Consolidated AOI of $46 million represents the low point for this year, and as Kristin mentioned, was consistent with the expectations we laid out on our first quarter call. AOI reflected the timing of licensing revenue and increased marketing and investments related to the series premieres. These timing dynamics are now in the rearview mirror, and we anticipate AOI growth for the second half of the year. Free cash flow was $43 million for the quarter with $108 million of free cash generated in the first 6 months of the year, we are on track to achieve our increased free cash flow guidance of approximately $220 million this year. Moving to our segment results. Domestic operations revenue decreased 11% to $470 million in the second quarter. Overall, subscription revenue decreased by 5%, which reflects streaming revenue growth of 6% that partly offset declines in affiliate of 17%, which were in line with our expectations for the quarter. We anticipate that our affiliate revenue rate of decline will improve in the second half of the year as new agreements and contractual changes take effect. Streaming revenue growth in the second quarter was primarily driven by price increases across our services. Domestic operations advertising revenue included the onetime impact of a now resolved system integration issue in the second quarter. Excluding this onetime impact, advertising revenue declined by mid-single-digit percent due to lower ratings and marketplace pricing, partially offset by continued digital advertising growth. Second quarter content licensing revenue was $56 million and reflected the timing and availability of deliveries in the period. We see continued strong demand for our content as evidenced by the recent activity we've already covered in great detail. Regarding adjusted operating income for the quarter, domestic operations AOI was $61 million and reflected revenue performance and the timing of marketing investments primarily related to the timing of series premieres. Moving to International. International revenue increased by 4% to $79 million for the second quarter. Excluding the favorable impact of foreign currency translation, International revenue increased approximately 2%. International subscription revenue, excluding FX, decreased 3%, reflecting the impact of the previously disclosed wind-down of a joint venture that operated primarily in Poland and Africa. Second quarter international advertising revenue, excluding FX, increased 11%, primarily related to revenue from the outperformance of advertising in the fourth quarter of 2025. International AOI for the second quarter was $14 million with an 18% margin. Turning to the balance sheet. In the second quarter, we paid down our remaining Term Loan A and terminated our credit facility. We ended the quarter with approximately $464 million of cash. We've meaningfully improved our debt maturity profile now with 3/4 of our total debt not due until July of 2032. At quarter end, we had net debt of approximately $1.3 billion and a consolidated net leverage ratio of 4.1x. As a result of the timing and cadence of AOI and cash generation throughout the year, our second quarter net leverage ratio represents the high point for the year. Regarding capital allocation, our philosophy has not changed. First, we look to fuel the business by creating and acquiring compelling programming that resonates with our audiences while maintaining healthy levels of free cash flow generation. Second, we remain focused on reducing gross debt and managing our maturity profile. Lastly, M&A and share repurchases will be opportunistic and measured. Moving to our updated outlook for 2026. First, regarding revenue, we now anticipate full year consolidated revenue in the range of $2.4 billion to $2.45 billion. Our updated revenue outlook reflects the inclusion of approximately $200 million to $225 million of content licensing revenue related to The Walking Dead license agreement. This implies that the full year domestic operations content licensing revenue will be in the range of $460 million to $485 million. Additionally, our updated revenue expectations reflect the effect of slower-than-anticipated subscriber acquisition that we experienced in the first half. As such, we now anticipate that domestic operations subscription revenue will decrease modestly by approximately 3% for the full year as compared to our 2025 results. Moving to adjusted operating income. We are increasing our full year AOI outlook to reflect our increased revenue expectations, partly offset by additional programming expenses related to The Walking Dead license agreement and now anticipate AOI in the range of $410 million to $420 million for the full year. Regarding free cash flow, it's important to note that the content licensing revenue is recognized upon the delivery of a series and the timing of cash payments is based upon a negotiated payment schedule. This causes a timing mismatch between when revenue is recognized and when cash is received. From an outside perspective, these dynamics can make licensing revenue appear volatile from quarter-to-quarter or year-to-year. Generally, IP licensing delivers a contracted stream of defined cash payments with high cash margins, providing us clarity and confidence into the longer-term cash generation potential of the business. We are increasing our free cash flow guidance to reflect anticipated in-year cash payments associated with the licensing agreement we announced today. As such, we now expect free cash flow of approximately $220 million for the full year. In closing, our content remains at the center of everything we do and remain committed to the engaging audiences across our multifaceted distribution ecosystem with comparable volumes of high-quality content every year. And we'll continue building out our library of powerful franchises while maintaining our focus on cash flow generation and the balance sheet. With that, I'll now hand the call back to Nick.

Thanks, Hozefa. Operator, please open the line for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Sean Diffley of Morgan Stanley.

Congrats on the Netflix deal for The Walking Dead. I was hoping you could take us behind the scenes on the competitive bidding process. How many bidders were there? What drove your decision to go with Netflix? And then if you could -- obviously, they're the incumbent and they know the property well, but just how many other parties were interested and why you chose to stay with them? And then just on the core adjustment to the full year, I think you mentioned geopolitical uncertainty, sports, I'd imagine some World Cup impacts, but just to mention some of the other drivers that are headwinds for the full year guide?

Sean, it's Kristin. On the bidding process, as we said last quarter, we had a lot of the major players involved. And there was a variety of things to consider. We always knew we wanted to do a co-exclusive deal, but the opportunity to license everything to everybody to one group globally versus piecemeal. There are a lot of different factors that impacted the decision. But I agree with you that Netflix has been an incredible partner for us and for this franchise. And at the end of the day, it was just the right choice for us to make. And then on the core adjustment, I think there's a variety of things going on. Your World Cup statement is something we've talked about a lot over this quarter, the impact across the world of the World Cup on a variety of businesses, including ours. But we're seeing some green shoots, and we're excited about the increase in the streaming over the course of the year, and we were actually really, really positively impacted in a bunch of ways by our linear performance. And so I'll let some of the others weigh in on that question, but we're more focused now on the back half of the year. And as we said, we anticipate much better performance coming out of what we knew was going to be a lumpy quarter.

Next question please operator.

Our next question comes from the line of David Karnovsky of JPMorgan.

[ Doug Bobrow ] on for David. I guess further kind of hammering into The Walking Dead deal, like can you just give a little bit more perspective on why this was the right structure, how long you've been thinking about co-exclusive rights? And then given that it is co-exclusive, what impact do you expect to AMC+ engagement from having the full content universe there?

Yes. I will say on the AMC+ side and then Kim really led the negotiations, so I'll let her speak a little bit to your prior question. The overall engagement that we're seeing on our streaming services is really giving us a lot of optimism here for the value of streaming and the way that we present it. And so for AMC+ in particular, that is a destination for our core fan base. And so the co-exclusivity regarding Netflix, I think we feel really positive that it is going to increase and build on the increasing engagement that we're already seeing for AMC+ and our other services. But people do associate this IP very specifically with AMC. So I think it can cohabitate quite nicely on AMC+ and on Netflix and do really good work for both streaming services, which is why we're so enthusiastic about this deal. Anything you want to add, Kim?

Yes, sure. Doug, as we've mentioned on past quarterly calls, we've worked for years to align the rights around this valuable franchise ahead of this deal with the goal of generating the best economic outcome possible with the right partner, which we think we've accomplished with Netflix. I think that, that took a lot of work over the years to align all of our international rights, et cetera. So we're excited at the outcome of that. And to what Kristin said, I think that this co-exclusive arrangement allows us to bring the original Walking Dead series back to AMC+ for the first time. And we're really excited about that. Our fans are really excited about that. And I think we will see the results as it reverts to the platform in January.

Thanks. Let's go to the next question operator. Oh, sorry. You got a follow up. Go ahead, Doug.

Yes. Sorry, I have a follow-up. Then just, I guess, a little bit separately, you recently leaned into live sports and sports adjacent content between wrestling and some sports docuseries. I'm curious on how engagement has looked for those properties and as sports rights and should the programming associated with them continue to drive programming industry-wide? Like how much further do you anticipate the company pushing into this space?

That's a great question. The live sports program, we've been really pleasantly surprised that keep saying that on this call, but there's been a lot of good things coming out of the quarter with the performance of TNA. And we talked a lot before we launched that content does it fit into our strategy for AMC. And Wrestling, it really is story-driven, character-driven content, which is why we thought it would align nicely with what AMC, the linear channel represents. And then what the other benefit of having Wrestling on is it does tie quite nicely with the audiences for some of our other content, so skewing younger male, but a lot of women also watch Wrestling. So the wrestling thing has been great for us. And then I'll let Dan speak to the further ideas that he has. But I will say, as we commented last year, Rise of the 49ers was another big bright spot for us in the programming category, and we have another sort of episode in that docu series called the Rise of the Saints, which speaks to what happened in New Orleans post-Katrina with the New Orleans Saints. So Dan, anything else on sports?

No, the same thing. I mean as we see sports -- live sports continue to engage the audience, we can be a real provider of sports adjacent content that can service that audience, which has demonstrated a real affinity for all this kind of content. So we're very much in this business, not only with our Rise of franchise, but our Cursed franchise that we announced about 6 weeks ago and other sports adjacent content that we have in the works.

It is worth noting, Doug, that in our Central Northern Europe group, where we have about 250 employees in Budapest, we actually operate the #1 and #2 sports channels in Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and the former Czech Republic. So we do a significant amount of live sports programming internationally. But in the U.S., I think our focus continues to be scripted dramas and intriguing unscripted with supplemental, as you said, shoulder programming that still sticks to our regular genre. Like you won't see us going out and trying to license games or anything like that. That's not where we're going. But as great storytellers in the U.S. and in some of our other territories, it's been beneficial for us to tell stories about some of these characters and teams as well.

Our next question comes from the line of Steven Cahall of Wells Fargo.

And I joined the call late, so I apologize if some of this has already been answered. But I was just wondering if you could talk through the sort of ratable recognition, I think you're going to have for The Walking Dead. So if I understand it correctly, you'll have a couple of hundred million in '26 and '27 as revenue. How should we think about the AOI contribution in those years and also the AOI contribution after those years given the cash profile that you laid out? And with the guidance that you're changing for '26, I'm just wondering what the underlying ex Walking Dead changes to guidance versus how much of it is from the new transaction?

Thanks Steven. So on the revenue recognition, it's not out of the ordinary standard procedure. We're going to recognize $200 million to $225 million of the revenue in year '26 and also in '27. That is driven by ASC 606 revenue recognition rules, which require revenue to be recorded at the present value of the future payments. So it's going to be approximately $445 million for the life of the agreement. AOI will be high margin, as you would suspect in the content licensing deal, just like all of our content licensing deals. And so we won't speak to the specific margins with result with regard to the specific contract, but it's a content licensing construct. And then free cash flow will come in at $25 million in year '26, $100 million in years '27 through '30 with the remainder in 2031. And that follows contracts, the contractual provision.

And just on the guidance.

On the guidance, look, we're keeping to the guidance on advertising revenue. I think we talked about $200 million to $225 million of new licensing revenue coming in, which implies domestic content licensing of $460 million to $485 million for the year. Domestic subscription revenue for the year will come in at about 3% decline year-over-year. So that reflects the offset.

Operator we will go to the next question.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Michael Morris of Guggenheim Securities.

I wanted to ask first about your comment that the rate of affiliate declines can improve in the back half of the year with the new agreements. Would love to hear some more detail on those new agreements. I know they've been sort of evolving in shape and components, as you pointed out. But would love to hear a little bit more about how that can lead to an improved rate of decline. That would be helpful. And then bigger picture, there are several very large transactions in the media market that have been announced or contemplated, whether it's Fox acquiring Roku, whether it's what Comcast has announced with their split. I'd love to hear your view of the broader landscape and how these changes may or may not impact your business.

I'll give you a high level on the affiliate. We're starting to see improving video sub trends in cable, although it's still earlier. And obviously, a healthier distribution ecosystem will benefit everybody. We were happy for Charter to see that they only had -- they were only down 21,000 on the video subs in their earnings call. And the TV Select+, the hard bundle that we're part of is now over, I think, over $125 in streaming value for subscribers. And as we mentioned, we're seeing significant engagement and authentication for people who have the opportunity to engage with AMC+ in some of these hard bundles. But overall, like I said, we saw a 21% improvement on VTV audiences for the quarter, and we think things are starting to settle in. And then obviously, we announced our YouTube TV renewal, which Kim can add a little color to on the distribution side, and then we'll come back to your second question.

Sure. As Kristin mentioned, we renewed our Carriage agreement with YouTube during the quarter. It was a smooth and very constructive renewal completed without any disruption for our viewers. And I think this is notable at a time where recent renewals across the industry have involved a lot of public dispute and blackouts. So we think it says something about the value of our programming strength and of our affiliate relationships and the impact of really our partner-focused approach to distribution. So I'm excited that we've renewed distribution agreements with 4 of the top 5 major domestic MVPDs in the last 12 months, including Comcast, DirecTV, DISH and YouTube and feel very strongly about the length and economics we achieved in those renewals.

And then as far as consolidation, it can be a tailwind for us because there's fewer larger platforms and they all need high-quality content to differentiate, right? And so we're one of the few independent suppliers of premium programming and owned IP and The Walking Dead deal is evidence of it. So we also, I think -- we've said for the last 3.5 years, like our goal is to continue to make great IP to meet audiences wherever they are in our distribution strategies, whether it's streaming, AVOD, SVOD, FAST. And I think we're well positioned. We're watching closely with what goes on throughout the marketplace. And as a public company, we'll always answer the phone when it rings. And we're just sort of in a watch and see moment, but we're not changing our strategy that we have been talking about for the last 3.5 years. We're just going to keep going. And I think we have a small but mighty mixing that is where the little engine that could here, and we're just going to keep going, and we're optimistic about our opportunities going forward.

Thanks, Mike. Operator, we can go to the next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Douglas Creutz of TD Cowen.

Just wondering how the $100 million in annual cash licensing payments you'll be getting for The Walking Dead rights over the next 5 years compares to, let's say, the average annual licensing payment you got for the franchise over the last 5 years?

You can't really compare them, Doug, because as Kim said, they were -- things were licensed in different countries to different people in all different tenures. And so it was really hard even going into this process for us to think through what would be a good deal, a really good deal and a great deal, right? So it's not really a one-to-one. But again, we're thrilled that we were able to take the time to bring all the rights back to be able to position them in the marketplace as a global offering across every single piece of the library, so the 371 episodes that we have. But it's nearly impossible to kind of to answer the question the way you framed it, sorry.

I would now like to turn the conference back to Nicholas Seibert for closing remarks. Sir?

Thank you all for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in AMC Global Media. Have a nice day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.