Lionsgate Delivers Streaming Gains

Releasing its Q4 and full-year results, Lionsgate announced gains in its media networks division, with global subscribers to Starz rising to 29.5 million, including 16.7 million streaming customers.

Q4 revenue at the independent studio was $876.4 million, beating Wall Street estimates, with its net loss narrowing to $37.7 million.

“Fiscal 21 was a year of strong domestic and international subscriber growth at Starz, great new television series, record library sales and a successful pivot to alternative release strategies for many of our films,” said Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer. “Financially, we reported over $540 million in adjusted OIBDA and over $300 million in adjusted free cash flow, enabling us to significantly reduce our net leverage ratio. We enter Fiscal 22 with full content pipelines and with Starz projected to achieve even better net subscriber adds domestically and internationally than in Fiscal 21.”

The studio reported a record $780 million in revenues from its film and television library for the last 12 months.

The media networks segment reported revenues of $401 million, a 12 percent increase, with improved profit of $43 million. Starz’s global subscriber base increased 23 percent to 29.5 million, with a 69 percent increase in OTT customers to 16.7 million, beating the target of 13 million to 15 million.

In the motion pictures division, revenues fell to $292.4 million, with profit down to $61.6 million.

Television production revenues fell to $210.7 million and segment profit decreased to $9.1 million, due to the timing of series deliveries and library revenue and profits in the prior-year quarter.