Last December’s two-season renewal of Apple TV+ series Silo was a boon to AMC Networks, whose studio arm produces the show. But even though there’s no major follow-up project in the pipeline, top execs plan to remain in the third-party business on a case-by-case basis.
“Currently we’re producing pretty much exclusively for our AMC-owned platforms,” Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios, said Friday on a quarterly conference call with Wall Street analysts. Nevertheless, he continued, “We do have a studio, we are able to produce for third parties when it’s beneficial to us and makes financial sense. We do have a lot of interest in our studio content, so we’re going to be strategic and opportunistic as we go forward.”
In 2023, AMC Networks collected $56 million in licensing fees for Silo, according to SEC filings. Even when that gain and a $20 million gain from returned licenses from Hulu are factored out, overall licensing in 2024 increased 4% over 2023 levels to reach $277 million.
That $277 million figure also includes a sizable amount from Netflix, which reached a deal to feature several AMC Networks shows. CEO Kristin Dolan highlighted what she called the “Netflix effect,” wherein past seasons of shows appearing on Netflix draw large viewership, helping to generate buzz for new seasons when they arrive on AMC Networks platforms. (The phenomenon dates back more than a decade, with Breaking Bad an early beneficiary.)
Production started last fall on the third season of Silo, a dystopian drama starring Rebecca Ferguson (who also is an executive producer) and created by Graham Yost. Apple TV+ hasn’t announced a premiere date for the third season. The streaming outlet said the fourth season will be the show’s last. License fees are generally accounted for when a season debuts on a network or streamer, so even though the renewal news came last December the financial benefit will not show up in financial results until around the time of premiere.
CFO Patrick O’Connell noted during the call that the company had projected licensing revenue in 2024 to total $225 million on a run-rate basis. “That was based on our current level of production,” he said, with the company’s 2025 forecast for $250 million.
“We continue to produce at really healthy levels and the market continues to be extraordinarily receptive to the programming that we’re producing,” the exec said. Licensing “was a net growth driver in 2024 and we continue to think it’s going to be a tailwind in 2025.”
Beyond 2025, Dolan noted the company will regain rights to the original Walking Dead series in less than two years, giving it a number of options for the next cycle.
Licensing was one of the few upbeat themes for AMC Networks in an otherwise disappointing quarter, with an ongoing ad slump helping to drag total revenue down 12% from the year-ago period. The company undershot Wall Street analysts’ consensus forecasts for revenue and earnings per share and also took a charge of $267.8 million to reflect the declining value of its linear networks. Shares in AMC Networks fell 7% in early trading Friday after traders digested the earnings report.
