AMCX - NASDAQ

Good day everyone and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the AMC Networks Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there will be a question-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. Now I will pass the call over to Nick Seibert, Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the AMC Networks second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining us this morning are Kristin Dolan, Chief Executive Officer; Patrick O’Connell, Chief Financial Officer; Kim Kelleher, Chief Commercial Officer; and Dan McDermott, President of Entertainment and AMC Studios. Today’s press release is available on our website at amcnetworks.com. 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 AMC Networks SEC filings for a discussion of risks and uncertainties. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on this call today. We will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. The required definitions and reconciliations can be found in today’s press release. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to Kristin.

[Operator Instructions] Please stand by for our first question. And it’s from Thomas Yeh with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Thanks so much. Good morning. Kristin, I wanted to dig in a little bit on this Netflix feel. How does it look in terms of the outline of what you’re expecting it to do relative to the experiments that you had run in the past with, say, for example, HBO with the AMC Plus pics [ph]? And has the experimentation evolved in any way in terms of what you’re hoping to get out of it and what you’re hoping to see?

Sure. Good morning, Thomas. We’re super excited about this deal. A lot of people do talk about the Breaking Bad effect and how a decade or so ago, the exposure that Breaking Bad got on Netflix really helped break that series out into something that’s now kind of part of our culture. And so with the Netflix deal, we’re putting our content non-exclusively prior seasons on a very big stage in the US. And these shows not only will get a lot of exposure to the 125 million Netflix subscribers in the US, but for our distribution partners who all have Netflix partnerships themselves, it’s beneficial to them as well, right. So if you think about, Roku [ph] has a Netflix button on their remote control, right. Comcast and others have Netflix partnerships and bundles within their distribution ecosystem. So, for us having this exposure we think will really drive as it did with Max, people back to AMC and AMC Plus for the new seasons that are premiering in 2025 and 2026 of these franchises. So, it’s exciting for us. I think Netflix is also equally excited about it. So August 19, it all shows up onscreen; so we encourage everybody to check it out and to -- if there’s anything you haven’t consumed yet of our newer franchises, watch seasons one and in some cases, seasons two, and then roll on back to us when we get into the fall and into early next year for the premiers of the new seasons.

Can I just add to that? Because Dan’s sitting right here, and I just -- I need to congratulate him and his folks for -- you know, even with the reduction in expense since I’ve joined the company. The quality of what we’re putting on the street continues to be stellar. And we talked about a little bit in the script but anybody that’s watched season -- the current season of Interview With The Vampire, Episode Five, or if you’ve watched Daryl Dixon, which was shot in France, like the quality of what we’re producing ourselves. And then on the film side, the value of the acquisitions that our film team is doing continue to really build for us; the franchises, the content and the asset value because we’re doing great stuff, but we’re doing it in a very cost conscious way. So, just -- you know the reduction in expense is important but we’ve really, I think, sustained, if not, enhanced the quality of what we’re putting out in our products across all brands,

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Joyce with Seaport Research Partners.

Okay, that’s good to hear. Secondly, on the Netflix deal revenues would be recognized when you deliver episodes of your content. Are you making everything available at once or is it going to be kind of spread out for a while?

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo.

Thank you. As I see no further questions in queue, I will turn the call back to management for closing remarks.

Thanks for joining us today. Have a good weekend.