Lionsgate results: booming library revenues offset streaming challenges

Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer

US media firm Lionsgate, which is active across content creation and streaming, has reported robust revenues for the quarter ending December 31 2022 (fiscal Q3, 2023).

All told, revenues came in at $1bn, with library revenues hitting a record $845m. The only real blip was an $80m restructuring charge connected to the company’s media networks business – which includes its streaming activities. More positively, the company generated a $43m cash gain by selling a partial interest in Starzplay Arabia.

Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer called it “a strong financial quarter with record trailing 12-month library revenues affirming the value of our intellectual properties. We enter our fourth quarter with encouraging signs across all of our businesses: a rebounding domestic box office just as we bring our biggest slate in years to theatres; renewals of six key Lionsgate Television series during or immediately after the close of the quarter; and improved STARZ economics due to its international reorganisation.”

In terms of the media networks segment of the business, revenues of $380.3 million were down to $388.9 million compared to the prior year quarter.  This figure “reflected growth in domestic streaming revenue and Lionsgate+ (previously STARZPLAY International) revenue partially offset by lower domestic linear revenue.”

Profits in this part of the business increased to $49.5 million from $28.5 million year on year, driven by lower domestic marketing costs and an improved international cost structure.  However total global subscribers, including Starzplay Arabia, decreased to 37.2 million, driven by linear and OTT pressures domestically. Excluding the international subscribers in the seven markets that Lionsgate+ is exiting, total global subscribers were up 2.9% year-over-year but down sequentially to 28.7 million.