AMC Networks reported its first quarter earnings on Friday, noting a 13% drop in U.S. ad revenue to $140 million due to a “linear ratings decline and a challenging ad market.” Streaming subscriptions to AMC+, meanwhile, ticked up to 11.5 million, an increase of 300,000 subscribers since March 2023.
Following this reported decline, the company’s stock fell by roughly 10%. An hour and a half after AMC’s earnings call concluded, the company’s stock was listed at $12.35 a share. The company’s stock has fallen about 34% when accounting for year to date.
Here are the topline results:
Revenue: Quarterly revenue came in at $596 million, a 16.9% drop from the same quarter last year which hit $717 million. That figure was below Zacks Investment Research analysts’ expectations of $604 million. Domestic revenue was $524 million, a 14% decline from last year during which the company benefitted from $56 million of content licensing and other revenues related to producing the TV series “Silo” for Apple TV+.
Subscribers: Total subscribers for AMC+ rose to 11.5 million, a 2% increase from March of 2023. Streaming revenues increased 3% to $145 million driven by year-over-year growth and price increases.
Earnings per share: The company posted $1.16 adjusted earnings per share, a 56% decrease from last year’s $2.62 for the same quarter and a miss on Zacks estimates of $1.79.
AMC Networks stock was down more than 4% in pre-market trading on Friday after the earnings were reported.
“In the first quarter, we continued to execute on our strategic priorities, including the ongoing delivery of healthy free cash flow,” AMC Networks CEO Kristin Dolan said in statement on Friday. “As new technologies transform the way media is consumed, we continue to produce great content and make it available to viewers whenever and wherever they want to watch. We recently strengthened our balance sheet by completing a series of financing transactions that meaningfully extended our debt maturities. This creates substantial flexibility for us as we continue to leverage our core strengths and reorient our business around the consumer-driven changes that are happening across the industry.”
The company noted that “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live,” a spin-off featuring the return of Andrew Lincoln to the flagship franchise, is AMC’s best performing series since the final season of “The Walking Dead.” The show was originally conceived as a series of films, but pivoted to a limited series.
