Revenue plummeted by £135.3M ($182.9M) last year at Black Doves producer Sister as its annual results reveal the group took a £34.4M hit on the closure of its American hub.
Following a record 2023, sales at the Jane Featherstone and Elisabeth Murdoch-run outfit fell by 65% to £72.9M for full-year 2024.
Sister’s accounts, which have just been filed at Companies House, put this down to “the build up of COVID related deliveries pushed into 2023.” “2024 represents a more normalized level of revenue from Sister UK,” the results said. Sister’s revenue in 2023 hit a record high and figures for the years before 2023 were closer to those being revealed today.
During a difficult year after which British broadcasters declared a scripted funding crisis and during which Sister saw splashy Netflix show Kaos cruelly axed, the group made an operating loss of nearly £20M and an adjusted EBITDA loss of £4.7M. Nearly a decade after launch, Sister is still yet to turn a profit.
Results have been adjusted from previous years to reflect the closure of Sister’s U.S. operation, which took place late last year and saw the exits of top executives Cindy Holland, Jane Wiseman and Efrain Miron, who subsequently joined the new-look Paramount-Skydance TV studio. Sister has always stressed that it will continue to make shows for American players like Netflix’s Black Doves, but that it was focusing production power in its UK heartland. Several weeks back, the indie hired former Banijay UK boss Lucinda Hicks as group CEO in London.
With this in mind, Sister’s results revealed that its loss from discontinuing the American hub was £34.5M. However, “the divisions closure is expected to significantly reduce the Group’s operating expenses in the future,” it added.
“The closure of the Los Angeles office followed a review by the Sister board that examined the tough market conditions that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, double Hollywood strikes and the ongoing industry contraction,” said the results. “As Sister continues its pursuit of profitability, a decision was made to focus the company’s efforts and resources on UK based operations with global partners.”
Elsewhere, four principal risks to Sister were identified in the results document including the “costs of UK production having risen to a point whereby UK public broadcasters are funding smaller proportions of budgets, reducing the number of potential greenlights for production businesses.”
This reflected the bombshell comments made by Featherstone at the start of this year, when she revealed to a parliamentary committee that the BBC had a number of scripted shows on its slate that it “can’t fund.” The BBC later told the same committee that the industry was experiencing a scripted funding crisis.
Speaking to Deadline, Sister Group COO and CFO Chris Fry focused on the positive.
“2024 saw the delivery of several outstanding projects for Sister,” he added, flagging Kaos, Black Doves and the BBC’s The Split: Barcelona. “After a period of transition for the business, we have doubled down on our track record of creating exceptional entertainment in the UK, for a worldwide audience. We’ve entered 2025 on a clear trajectory of sustainable growth under the stewardship of new Group CEO Lucinda Hicks, with a renewed focus on our core mission: empowering visionary storytellers to create their best work.”
Sister recently took a majority stake in Pamela: A Love Story producer Dorothy Street Pictures. Upcoming content includes Apple TV+’s Prodigies starring Will Sharpe and Ayo Edebiri, ITV’s Coldwater with Andrew Lincoln and The Split spin-off The Split Up.
