Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Today we are hosting a conference call to discuss Cinedigm's third quarter fiscal 2022 results. My name is Adam, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will have a question and answer session at the end of the call, at which time all participants wishing to ask a question will be instructed to press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If anyone needs operator assistance, please press star zero.
Please limit yourself to one or two questions so that others may have a chance to ask questions, too. You may re-enter the queue. Please note that this call is being recorded. Your host for today is Ms. Laura Kiernan, Head of Investor Relations for Cinedigm. Please go ahead when you are ready.
Thank you, Adam. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Cinedigm's fiscal 2022 third quarter results conference call. Before we begin, I would like to point out that certain statements made on today's call contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions.
Potential risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's business and financial results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are described in the company's periodic reports filed with the SEC from time to time. All the information discussed on this call is as of today, February 15, and Cinedigm undertakes no duty to update it. In addition, certain information presented on this call represents non-GAAP financial measures.
With us today, we have Chris McGurk, the Chairman and CEO, John Canning, CFO, Yolanda Macias, Chief Content Officer, Gary Loffredo, Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel and President, Erick Opeka, Chief Strategy Officer and President of Cinedigm Networks, and Tony Huidor, Chief Technology and Product Officer, all of whom will be available for questions following the prepared remarks. I will now turn the call over to Chris McGurk to begin.
Thank you, Laura. Welcome everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call today. Clearly, we had great results this quarter on all fronts, and that's because, unlike many of the growth micro-cap and technology new media stocks we often get compared to, we are successfully executing on a strategic roadmap for sustained growth.
We just posted record streaming revenues with our fourth quarter in a row of triple-digit streaming revenue growth. We saw huge acceleration in all our key performance metrics, including monthly viewers, subscribers, and total minutes viewed. We also have solid fundamentals, including a strong balance sheet with $20 million in cash and zero debt. We have posted a net profit of $4.3 million year-to-date. We are already seeing this strong streaming growth momentum carry forward into this January and February as well.
We are achieving these outstanding results because we have a unique strategy to capture all the upsides of the rapidly growing streaming and media technology business. Unlike almost all the other players in this space, we are not dependent on a single revenue stream or a single streaming channel.
Instead, we have a portfolio of multiple revenue streams from advertising, subscriptions, technology, and digital content. We also have a robust portfolio of enthusiast streaming channels, more than two dozen with extremely broad distribution across every major streaming platform. Our portfolio of streaming channels does not compete with the big general entertainment subscription services like Disney+ and Netflix, but instead is perfectly complementary to them on every distribution platform.
This unique revenue and channel portfolio strategy in the streaming space is what is driving our rapid growth and why we are such a different and high potential business and investment proposition than everyone else in the streaming and technology arena. Let me further underscore that point by going through some of the quarter's highlights.
Our total consolidated revenues of $14.1 million this quarter were up 42% over the prior year and up almost 40% over the prior sequential quarter. Streaming revenues were a new record and up 104%, with ad-supported streaming revenues up 100% and subscription streaming revenues up 109%. I know it's important to many of you that this quarter's revenues more than handily beat all the revenue estimates from all the analysts who follow our company.
Our year-to-date consolidated revenues were $39.2 million, which was up 69% from last year, led by our streaming revenues, which increased by 133%. This was driven by a surging ad-supported streaming revenue business, which was up 171%, and also subscription streaming revenue, which was up 90% year-to-date versus the prior year.
It's very important to note that we achieved this huge overall streaming revenue growth against increasingly tougher comparisons as we grew strongly each quarter last year as well. Notwithstanding that, we have now grown streaming revenues in triple digits for four quarters in a row with record numbers in each quarter. Erick will expand further on the details and performance metrics of what's driving this massive growth in streaming for Cinedigm and why our unique strategy is working so well.
Year-to-date, we've also generated positive adjusted EBITDA of $7.5 million and net income of $4.3 million, or $0.03 per share. Again, our EPS this quarter of zero per share also very handily beat the estimates of all the analysts who follow our company. However, as I've said before on these calls, we are now in a rapid growth mode and continue to invest in accretive acquisitions, more premium content and technology enhancements to drive our streaming growth.
While we have been and will continue to invest behind smart, accretive growth opportunities, I also wanna emphasize that our positive year-to-date net income, combined with our zero balance sheet, is another key attribute of Cinedigm that clearly separates us from most of the other players in our space.
Let me expand a little bit more on our investment activities for the roll-up acquisition, film and TV content, and technology initiatives that are fueling our triple-digit streaming growth. The streaming and technology acquisition asset roll-up strategy we have successfully executed over the last 14 months has resulted in significant accretive additions to our streaming channel and digital content portfolios.
Last month, we announced an agreement to acquire Digital Media Rights, or DMR, a New York-based streaming company with 10 streaming channels and 7,500 film and TV titles. DMR has a particular focus on Asian and anime titles and channels, two of the hottest content categories in the world right now.
After the DMR deal, which is dependent on the final stages of diligence, in a little over a year, we will have accretively added 15 streaming channels, more than 20,000 film and TV titles, and full ownership of our industry-leading Matchpoint streaming technology to our asset portfolio.
Clearly, DMR is just the latest example of how key players in the media and technology space continue to be attracted by Cinedigm's technology, distribution muscle, content, scale, and public currency, and seek to be part of our rapid growth narrative. As far as film and TV content acquisitions are concerned, we continue to rapidly build our library of premium distribution rights through our acquisition roll-up strategy, the distribution deals we have in place with key suppliers like Hallmark and the NFL, and new content licensing deals.
We now have a film and TV library of approximately 40,000 titles, with about 35,000, or 90% of those titles, streaming assets. Those titles have a concentration in genres like family, indie film, action, and horror that clearly support our streaming channel portfolio and growth plans. This is one of the largest modern streaming content libraries in the world.
It's very important to note that we are not following the path of many of our competitors who are developing films and TV properties from scratch and taking on significant production risk. Instead, the vast majority of the content we acquire is finished product with very predictable market potential and, in the vast majority of cases, with acquisition deals that either require small advances or revenue-sharing deals with no upfront investment.
Finally, at our core, we have always been an innovative, industry-leading technology company, and we continue to invest in our technology future. Our recent augmented reality, or AR announcement with Nreal, our full acquisition of and enhancements to our state-of-the-art proprietary Matchpoint streaming technology, and the ramp-up of our engineering team at Cinedigm India all underscore our commitment to be at the forefront of where media business innovation is heading, be it the metaverse, AR, NFTs, or streaming technology enhancements. Another extremely important factor, and one that I feel I do not emphasize enough, that sets us apart from other players in our space, is our experienced executive team, who all have deep industry knowledge and relationships with the capability to manage a much larger company.
Finally, we believe with all the recent market volatility and impact on our sector that Cinedigm presents a much more appealing investment opportunity than ever before. Let me quote Bill Ackman of Pershing Square, who recently plowed a massive investment into Netflix to take advantage of an incredibly compelling bargain investment opportunity. Ackman stated, "Many of our best investments have emerged when other investors whose time horizons are short term discard great companies at prices that look extraordinarily attractive when one has a long-term horizon." And he further pointed out, "We are all in on streaming." We believe this thinking clearly could apply to Cinedigm, only with even more upside, as evidenced by our record results this quarter and year- to- date. With that, I'll hand it over to John Canning. Then Erick Opeka will speak more about our streaming strategy and results. Following that, we'll take your questions, and finally, I'll provide some closing remarks. John?
Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. As Chris mentioned, our fundamentals are very strong, including no debt, a $20 million cash balance, and both positive net income and positive adjusted EBITDA year- to- date. We are poised to continue considering accretive acquisition opportunities while we reinvest in the organic growth of our business, improving and expanding upon our proprietary Matchpoint technology and supplementing our already strong management team.
Our balance sheet remains strong as we continue to take a measured approach to fundraising activities to support our acquisition and overall growth strategies. From this position of strength, while we remain debt-free, we continuously evaluate our optimal capital structure and would consider less dilutive financing alternatives when appropriate.
We handily beat both the revenue and EPS estimates of all the analysts that follow us this quarter, and we are hopeful that we will be picking up additional coverage in the near future. I'd also like to reiterate, as Chris said, that we operate a portfolio business model in media technology, content, and streaming that provides multiple revenue streams to fuel this rapid growth.
This maximizes growth opportunities and minimizes risk. While our streaming and digital content business continues to rapidly grow and become an ever larger percentage of our total business, we are also considering breaking out cinema equipment and our non-digital-based distribution business into a legacy business line next fiscal year to highlight more clearly our key growth drivers.
It's worth mentioning that since having joined Cinedigm five months ago, we have significantly enhanced the accounting and finance organization's systems, processes, and the depth of experience necessary to support our goal of becoming a much larger enterprise. On the accounting side, we've improved the functionality of our existing tools and streamlined integrations with our Matchpoint technology, bolstering controls and improving efficiency.
On the finance side, we've expanded the team to include top-notch talent, managing our planning and analysis, budgeting, forecasting, and business intelligence, driving more timely and accurate reporting to inform decision-making across the enterprise. Finally, I want to reiterate that our successful portfolio revenue and streaming channel strategy remains firmly on track, and we are prepared for and committed to achieving our long-term goals over the next two to four years.
These include targeting at least 50% annual revenue growth in streaming and digital, growing revenue to $150 million through organic and acquired revenue, increasing monthly viewers to over 40 million, growing engagement to 1 billion connected TV minutes from 500 million per month, and growing the content library to 75,000 titles. You can find our latest investor presentation hot off the presses at investor.cinedigm.com/events-and-presentations. Now, I'd like to hand it over to Erick. Erick?
Thank you, John, and thanks to everyone for joining the call today. Before I review our results in streaming, I wanted to expand on our strategic imperative and where we fit into this rapidly changing media ecosystem. The promise of streaming has always been about two things, the freedom of choice and a better value for consumers.
Over the last few years, consumers have grown increasingly wary of the cable bundle, which has lost more than 20 million households over the last 24 months. This is being driven by one key factor. Consumers have always wanted the ability to pick and choose the channels and content they want and just not pay for those that they don't watch. Initially, the promise of streaming was exactly that.
You got to choose the channels you wanted and were free from the expensive long-term contracting commitments and poor customer service of the legacy bundle. However, the trends in recent weeks and months point to a future where major media companies are gonna claw back all of that choice and value in an attempt to recreate the past. What have we seen? Rapid price increases across the board at major streaming services and virtual cable providers, some upwards of 35%-40%.
Forced bundling of services consumers didn't ask for, mega mergers to force even more bundling, and even a return to contractual pricing. Our philosophy and value proposition at Cinedigm couldn't be more different than that. Our values are about providing consumers the diversity of choice that they desire at price points they can afford, even if that means free with ads.
Allowing consumers the ability to stream their passions and build their own bundles of content is a winning strategy because, frankly, that's what consumers have been clamoring for decades. Based on our results, it's clear our strategy is fully resonating with consumers. Streaming channel revenues increased 104% over the prior year quarter and set a new company record.
Ad-supported streaming channels revenues increased 100% over the prior year quarter, and subscription streaming channel revenues increased 109% over the prior year quarter to 954,000 subs. We're closing in quickly on that 1 million subscriber milestone. We've seen new milestones across almost every facet of our business that reinforce consumers are enjoying Cinedigm's products.
Total streaming minutes in the quarter rose to 1.33 billion, up 47% from the prior year quarter, and the cumulative minutes streamed in the first nine months of the year were 3.92 billion, up more than 112% over the 1.84 billion streamed in the prior year first nine months. Total monthly ad-supported streaming channel viewers in the quarter were approximately 33 million, up 44% versus 22.6 million in the prior year quarter. As we noted, total subscribers to our subscription offerings increased to approximately 954,000, up 466% from the prior year quarter.
Additionally, our content library overall of approximately 40,000 titles, of which 90% are available for streaming, makes Cinedigm one of the largest streaming libraries in the world compared to other key streaming service providers like Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Tubi. This is according to data from Ampere Analysis from this last December 2021. If you wanna take a look at that. It also is in the presentation that John just went.
Our ability to scale and achieve these viewership and subscriber milestones at this rate is a reflection of our successful multi-pronged portfolio strategy that Chris described earlier. First, we continue to launch new channels into the market with the goal of at least one new channel in the market per quarter.
For example, in the last quarter, we launched cable and broadcast network, The Country Network, into the FAST linear space. We've done it with other players, such as Array and others. Second, we continue to focus on content programming. We added more than 5,000 films and series to our portfolio in the last quarter and have built a top-notch team of programmers with considerable experience growing audience in the cable and streaming environments at companies like Sinclair, Sony Networks and WGN.
Third, we continue to focus on expanding the distribution of our services, adding 19 new distribution outlets to our portfolio in the last quarter alone, including new distribution of channels with Comcast, Dish Network, DirecTV, ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV, IMDb TV, Samsung TV Plus, LG channels and more. Our blue-chip distribution partners reflect the high quality of our brands and content, and we expect that trend to continue.
Finally, our focus on technology enables us to accomplish what no other company in this space can do. Due to our tech, we can operate more channels at lower operating costs than anyone in the business. The same technology is also enabling us to optimize advertising yields, use AI and machine learning to price and value content, and create new experience to prepare us for the next generation of distribution, whether it's NFTs, the metaverse, VR, AR, or whatever new developments are in front of us, we will be ready. Technology is at the heart of our competitive moat. We're planning to add more than 100 employees over time, concentrated in our Cinedigm India technology hub, as we develop new game-changing products and software experiences to further our already broad market advantages.
The beauty of our strategy is that with scale, we can generate more distribution, better content, better partners, and ultimately more revenue. While we are growing at an incredible clip today, our acquisition roll-up strategy, most recently exemplified by DMR, enables us to do this faster in a way that no other company can match.
To sum it up, given our relentless focus on providing consumers the choice and value they want, and combined with our portfolio strategy and technological moat, we have ample layers to continue the rapid organic growth trajectory we are on. With our accretive M&A strategy, it will afford us the ability to grow far faster and at better operating metrics than our competitors in the market. With that, let me turn things over to the operator to take your questions. Thank you.
Just a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your headset is fully plugged in and unmuted locally. That's star one on your telephone keypad. Our first question today is from Dan Kurnos from The Benchmark Company. Dan, please go ahead. Your line is open. Dan Kurnos from The Benchmark Company, your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon, good morning in your guys' case. You know, obviously, stock reacting well here off a really strong print. You know, I guess first question, Chris or Erick, you know, we've talked a lot about kind of the support, the growth, the portfolio here. You guys have added a ton of channels. You've added a boatload of content. Now you've got DMR, which fills a nice little niche with a really strong anime presence, which I think is kind of a cornerstone for an umbrella channel.
Maybe if you wanna just update us on your thoughts, how close you're getting to that, and then any color you can kind of provide us on, valuation or contribution from DMR, just how we should think about the incremental benefit from the acquisition or synergies would be helpful. Thanks.
Yeah. This is Chris, Dan. Thank you. Just in terms of the DMR question, you know, we're getting close to closing that deal. I don't wanna get into, you know, details until it's closed, but, you know, we think, DMR is gonna be incredibly additive, to what we're doing. 7,500 titles, concentration on anime and Asian titles, 10 channels. You know, all that content is gonna be incredibly useful, across our portfolio for channels, like CONtv, our horror channels, that kind of thing. They're gonna help us in a number of ways, content channels, and obviously getting that scale is gonna help set us up, for the, you know, umbrella channel ideas, you know, that we've been considering, we've talked about, before on these calls. That's the DMR piece.
I'll let Erick answer the question about our portfolio and growth and maybe a little more specifics on, you know, timetable and thinking on the umbrella.
Yeah, sure. Hi, Dan. So, you know, I think one of the big things about a portfolio strategy, like any strategy is, you know, you're constantly adding new properties to the portfolio and you're culling things that don't work. So I think that's, you know, really, we're still in growth mode of adding new things to the portfolio. The market is still very nascent. You know, if you look at sort of the long-term horizon, this y ou know, there's only around $3 billion-$4 billion of FAST advertising happening today, depending on who you talk to, which analysts of that market you talk to.
On the broader scope, there's $70 billion from the rapidly eroding legacy system that needs to flow somewhere. We think you're just gonna see the sustained long-term growth. What does that mean? That means there's, you know, the demand for inventory is being outstripped by availability. We think this is a really good time for us to continue to add new channels to the portfolio, but with a real focus on learning what our, you know. I've listed a lot of great partners, really learning what is gonna drive their business.
Because ultimately, in addition to serving consumers, we're also trying to build great channels for those partners. I think that's a little bit more on where we're going with the portfolio. In terms of you know how DMR enhances this portfolio, you did hit the nail on the head when you talked about anime.
As you look at every major streaming service has a big anime component, also has a big batch of foreign dramas, which are quite hot right now, driving a lot of attention in the market. Beyond that, you know, we also are bringing in components, you know, in terms of their ad network, which adds more scale. You know, this is the year we're gonna be adding direct sales to our repertoire and really expanding CPMs. You know, we're not only just getting channels and content, we're also getting capabilities as well.
That's really good color. On that last point, Erick, that was gonna be one of the questions I was gonna talk about. Just looking at your results, it seems pretty clear to me, and I know you mentioned this somewhat in your prepared remarks, but you guys had a very healthy uptick in both fill rates and CPMs in the quarter. I'm just curious, well, A, you know, just to talk about how much low-hanging fruit there is to you know, to still pick there. Then, B, you know, as we look into Q1, there's obviously been some noise in the marketplace around, you know, potential worries about the consumer, inflation, et cetera. I know you guys weren't impacted by any supply chain stuff, obvious in your Q3 results, but just curious, you know, what kind of trends you're seeing as we head into the March quarter.
Sure. Well, look, I'll you know I think you know as we've gone through many quarters over the last year just talking about this, one of the things that I'm always impressed by is you know just when I think the team's ability to you know wring even more revenue growth out of the inventory, they go and they do even more. I you know just got feedback from my team that we are you know already for February pacing to where we were in November. I'm sure you know February is not exactly a very robust advertising month, as you know, the Super Bowl winds down and you know the holidays are in the rearview mirror.
The fact that we're pacing in February to where we were in November. To me, that's just a sliver example of just how good our team has been at optimizing our ad yields. You know, CPMs are up. Our render rates are among the highest they've ever been, and our fill rates are incredible just given the seasonality we're seeing. You know, the caveat obviously is we're still halfway through the quarter here. I think that example sort of, you know, it exemplifies just how focused we are on being the best in the business at maximizing yield out of the inventory.
They clamor for me every day to deliver them more inventory through M&A and better content because they know they can fill it. I think that's, you know, one of the great strategic advantages we as a company have, is we're just very, very good at extracting revenue out of inventory, even when the rest of the market may be experiencing things. We're not seeing that so far.
Got it. Super helpful. I will advance a couple multi-parters, so I guess I'll get back in the queue for now. So thanks for all the color, guys. I appreciate it and excellent finish to the calendar year.
Thanks, Dan.
Thank you.
The next question is from Brian Kinstlinger from Alliance Global Partners. Brian, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys, great quarter. First, can you update us on the expected timing for the launch of the Elvis Channel? I think it was supposed to launch on his birthday, and I didn't know if I saw it. Maybe you can tell us also what distribution partners will be streaming this channel.
Yep. Hi, Erick here. You know, yeah, we did, you know, when we initially announced it, you know, I think we were originally aiming for Elvis's birthday. You know, one thing I wanna make clear about when we announce forthcoming channels, it's almost I think you can kind of, they're akin to, you know, development deals around movies, right? Where, you know, sometimes they take.
Right.
Sometimes we're able to go faster than we anticipate, which was actually the case with El Rey. I think we were live in a few weeks after launch and announcement. Others take longer, especially if there's a lot of original programming, if there's a lot of parties, if there's a lot of approvals and things.
So I think Elvis, you know, clearly just given the high profile, given our focus on really getting the content right, given the brand care and feeding that has to happen, it's taking longer. Also, you know, there is a big movie coming out in the middle of the year. I think it's slated for July, starring Tom Hanks as Colonel Parker. The story of Elvis. Huge priority for WarnerMedia.
Obviously we wanna, you know, if we can get this out in the market in tandem with that, it's gonna be just a much more successful launch and far more culturally relevant. You know, long story short, you know, timing and windowing as we've seen with movies this last year, you know, you have to be flexible and change and roll with, you know, the optimal timing. This is really the same thing here. We're still working on it, working heavily, and we'll have more details on the distribution partners and so on. We would expect it to look very similar to other offerings we've brought into the market.
Yeah, Brian, we think that.
And then-
The Warner movie.
Sorry.
We think the Warner movie is a little bit more important than Elvis's birthday, I think, to sum it up.
As it relates to the Real Madrid channel, can you talk about when you'll have the picture-on-picture technology or any other updates you need to make it so that you can better monetize the solid viewership? Maybe you can provide an update on any KPIs for that channel.
Yeah, sure. Well, here's the great news about that channel is it's doing very well, right? We've seen in excess of about 3.2 million viewers on that channel pretty consistently. Even when there's matches or not matches, we're finding an actual increase in uptake in the non-match programming. As I think we've mentioned on previous calls, the biggest challenge with soccer is, unlike football that's kind of had 50, 60 years to kinda shape its cadence to work in the North American TV advertising market, football does not have the same sort of pauses and breaks every.
Sometimes even maddeningly half that happens when you're watching an NFL game. That said, we are in deep negotiations with some technology providers to allow us to do some of the things like picture-in-picture, side-by-side screen, and other things. We already do have deployed the technology to do overlays and sponsorships.
We'll be able to leverage some of that as we ramp up our direct sales efforts this year, on the overlay sponsorship side. The thing about, you know, the side-by-side picture- and- picture type technology, sometimes those things require, unlike a broadcast stream, they require participation and approval of the third-party technology partners we work with, simply because we have ad-sharing deals and other things.
If they can't leverage that technology for their share, then it becomes a problem. It's a little more complicated than, you know, if we were just a broadcast network, we could just deploy it. You know, it's gonna take a little more time and effort to get it right. I think, you know, the upside to that is we'll have, you know, basically come to market with something that nobody else can do. I think there's a lot of goodwill to get it right because it may lead to more business from other European teams if we're able to successfully deploy it.
Great. On render rates and prices, you made some comments. First of all, with the new technology you have, is there any way to quantify how much stronger render rates are from a year ago on a percentage basis? From a pricing standpoint, you made a couple of comments. It sounded interesting. It sounds like CPMs are up. Sounds like demand exceeds supply of inventory units. How do you see pricing over the next, you know, 12-18 months? Up 10%, 20% more?
Sure. Well, I'll give you sort of the philosophy we have. First up on the render side, I'll have to get back to you on specific numbers, but I do think we're approaching mid-90% effectiveness there, which is a pretty substantial improvement over where we were last year. That's one big piece of it. We still have a few platforms and partners where we have work to do on that front, but it's more of a mop-up exercise. We've really, across the board, dramatically improved that. In terms of pricing, I think pricing is really a function of two things.
One, having the content that advertisers want and the audience that advertisers want, it affords you the ability to increase pricing. Third is actually just time in market and getting market trust that, you know, you deliver on the ads and the impact that the advertiser wants. Well, the good news is we've been in market long enough where, you know, many of the advertisers are now familiar with us, our brands. You know, keep in mind our portfolio is very heavy with, you know, emerging brands, new brands that may transition from broadcast to fast and so on. It takes time, but I think we're starting to see some real goodwill emerge there.
You know, as you note, as you saw from our earlier notes, we've dramatically expanded the content portfolio, and I think this year our focus on bringing in, you know, top-tier recognizable series, exclusives, even some original programming, that we license, you know, is really gonna be a big part of, you know, being able to increase our ask.
Then lastly, of course, having the team in place to do those direct sales to get that ask. I mean, I'll give you a great example. You know, right now, you know, we're running a private marketplace deal, that's nearly a $45 CPM. You know, that's a lot higher than what we're normally doing, or more than twofold. You know, if we can.
There's a lot more headroom on that front as we improve the value of our content and programming. You know, those are Hulu and greater CPMs. We have a lot of headroom on that as we add better programming, deploy more technology and really increase, you know, our direct sales efforts.
Great. I have one last question. With the acquisition of DMR, I'm wondering, are there any limits to where they were distributing? Meaning now that they're working with you, are there any video-on-demand services or other platforms that weren't necessarily working with them, but now they can leverage your reach and maybe you can get more out of that?
Absolutely. You know, a couple things. I think, first off, you know, their business has been predominantly an AVOD even though they offer some of their services and brands as a subscription. They're predominantly an advertising-based company. VBI, as we know, and you guys know, you know, we are a hybrid model. We do advertising and subscription.
First off, you know, being able to take you know, 10 new brands into market and either launch them as new subscription services or combine their content into our existing services. Great example is they have one of the greatest libraries of foreign horror, and we have one of the fastest-growing horror streaming service in the market.
You know, so we can immediately not only improve the content on our horror service, but we can also. You know, they have a fantastic anime service called RetroCrush, which is, you know, kind of like a retro anime version of Crunchyroll. It's not very lightly distributed on the subscription side.
We can bring that to our, you know, 25+ subscription platforms, partners, cable, international. So we really can dramatically scale up the distribution. The subscription is where they bring we bring a lot of benefits. On the advertising side, you know, they've had a lot of experience, you know, building their ad network and driving social ad revenue that, you know, has not been a big piece of our business. So those two sort of.
It's a very kind of symbiotic situation there, where they have things that they're great at that help our overall business and we can hand off to them, and we have great distribution and models and partners that they're not working with today to enhance their offerings. You add in finding the content elements from their services into our services that are starting to scale, it just makes for a really rich base of opportunities between us.
Great. Thanks so much, guys.
Thanks.
Our final question today is from Scott Buck at H.C. Wainwright. Scott, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question. First, I was hoping you could just, you know, kinda talk about what the environment is like for content acquisition in terms of, you know, competitiveness and pricing these days, and how that, you know, could impact the cadence of future acquisitions.
Yeah, I think this is Chris. Sure, Scott. Thanks for joining the call today, Scott. I think we're in a great position, as I mentioned in my remarks, in order to acquire premium independent content right now. There are fewer distributors in the marketplace, and we're one of the biggest independent buyers of distribution rights in the market. Witness, as we both mentioned, the size of our library of 40,000 film and TV titles and, you know, 35,000 of which have a streaming component.
We're one of the largest modern streaming libraries, and that gives us very, very strong leverage to, you know, build and renew distribution deals with key players, as I said, like Hallmark and the NFL, but to also acquire finished content in the market at increasingly, I think, reasonable deal terms, where you know, many of the deals that we're doing now to acquire film and TV content, you know, either require a very minimal advance up front or they're a revenue sharing deal. There's no investment up front. And you know, we've got leverage in the market. We've got the large library. We've got the ability to acquire finished product where we've got a track record of distributing content, you know, for 20 years right now.
We know what's working in the marketplace now and what isn't. Acquiring finished content gives you a much better opportunity to pick up films and TV episodes and other pieces of content that you know has great and immediate market potential without taking on the risk, you know, like many of our competitors are obviously doing, actually developing and producing content from scratch.
That's a very, very small part of what we're doing. It's not really in our DNA. I think, you know, all those factors combined have put us really in the driver's seat in a buyer's market for independent content, and that's why our library is expanding, and that's why we've been fueling, you know, all of our channels with this content. It's leading to that enormous growth that you're seeing.
That's great. That's a really good color. I appreciate that. Second one for me, you know, we talked a lot about revenue growth. How should we be thinking about the growth in SG&A? You know, what do you guys need in terms of additional headcounts? I think I heard the number 100 thrown out over the next few years. You know, where is the investment in OPEX and how should we think about that over the next, you know, 12-24 months?
Yeah. I'll let the others answer that. The 100 figure, remember, we're talking about the expansion of our engineering and technology team in Cinedigm India. Obviously the cost of doing business over there is, you know, very favorable. That's where that expansion is gonna come. I'll let John or Erick, you know, respond to the rest of your question.
Yeah, I can touch on that.
Erick.
We're curren-
Go ahead, John.
Then I'll hand it off to Erick. We're currently poised to support the growth we have in mind from an SG&A perspective. We certainly aren't expecting SG&A to grow any faster than our overall company growth, but certainly to be growing much more slowly. We've done a great deal of investing in our teams, our processes, our systems to get to this point, to support growing to a $150 million revenue company. We're comfortable that we're in good shape to get there. With this management team, we're gonna do it quite smartly. Erick?
Just to second John's comments, I think, you know, as you look at and compare Cinedigm to other, you know, to our peers, you know, other microcaps, streaming plays and so on, I think one of the things you'll see is, you know, we're already relatively disciplined on cost. You know, we're not running huge deficits like some of our peers in the market are. We're looking at it not only that, we're looking at leveraging technology to tighten that up even more, right?
You know, we're operating with a comparable, you know, investment in people, you know, nearly a 30-channel portfolio that, you know, some people have the same amount of people that they're doing, you know, one or maybe two channels. We already have, you know, a lot of operational efficiencies that we drive from technology.
One of the things that we're looking at is how can we deploy even more technology to allow the people that we already have in place do more. That's really at the heart of what we're doing, right, is how do we get more efficient there. I think in the future you're gonna see, you know, our SG&A growth.
You know, we had to invest just to get the staff and base up to a level that we could support the growth we were at. We were you know undermanned. I think now going forward, it's gonna be less about you know absolute headcount and more about how to get more productivity through the deployment of technology tools to get there. I would say, think more modest SG&A growth go forward than you've seen over the last 18-24 months.
Great. That's perfect. I appreciate the time, guys. Thanks again, and congrats on the quarter.
Hey, thanks, Scott. Thanks for joining.
This now concludes today's Q&A session, so I'll hand it back to Chris McGurk for any closing remarks.
Thanks. Thank you everyone for joining us today and for your interest in Cinedigm. To reiterate, we had our strongest results ever in streaming this quarter, registering record triple-digit revenue growth for the fourth quarter in a row. We have a unique strategy and portfolio business model in technology, entertainment content, and streaming that provides multiple revenue streams and a broad portfolio of enthusiast streaming channels to fuel this rapid growth.
Unlike most players in our space, we are not dependent on a single channel or a single revenue stream, and our enthusiast channel business is not competitive with the big general entertainment subscription streamers like Disney+ and Netflix. Instead, it is perfectly complementary to them. We also have a strong balance sheet with zero debt and are net profitable year- to- date.
Clearly, we continue to fire on all cylinders and believe we present a very compelling investment opportunity, particularly at this moment in time. Please follow up with Laura Kiernan and the team at High Touch Investor Relations with any other questions you may have. She can be reached at cinedigm@htir.net. We look forward to speaking with you again when we report our fourth quarter and full year results. Thank you all.
This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.