Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Lionsgate 4th Quarter 2021 Year End Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode and later we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, EVP and Head of Investor Relations, Mr.
Nilay Shah. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us For the Lions Gate fiscal 2021 Q4 conference call, we'll begin with opening remarks from our CEO, John Faltheimer followed by remarks from our CFO, Jimmy Barge. After their remarks, we'll open the call for questions. Also joining us on the call today are Vice Chairman, Michael Burns COO, Brian Goldsmith Chairman of the TV Group, Kevin Beggs and Chairman of the Motion Picture Group, Joe Drake. And from Starz, we have President and CEO, Jeff Hirsch CFO, Scott McDonald President of Domestic Networks, Alison Hoffman and EVP of International, Supernakawe.
The matters discussed on this call include forward looking statements, including those regarding the performance of future fiscal years. Such Statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially and adversely from those described in the forward looking statements as a result of various factors. This includes the risk factors set forth in Lionsgate's most recent Annual Report on Form 10 ks as amended in our most recent quarterly report on Form 10 Q filed with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions These forward looking statements may be made to reflect any future events or circumstances.
I'll now turn the call over to John.
Thank you, Nilay, and good afternoon, everyone. During an extraordinary year marked by a global pandemic and unprecedented industry disruption, We continue to execute on our strategy and business plan, and we're wrapping up fiscal 2021 with our 4th strong quarter in a row. I'll recap the highlights of the fiscal year, talk about how fiscal 2021 positions us for fiscal 2022 and close with a few of our learnings from this past year. Financially, we reported strong adjusted OIBDA and over $300,000,000 in adjusted free cash flow in the fiscal year, allowing us to reduce our net leverage ratio by more than a full turn. We also made qualitative enhancements to our capital structure by taking advantage of market conditions to refinance and extend our debt at lower rates.
We ended the fiscal year with over $500,000,000 in available cash, an untapped $1,500,000,000 revolver and a healthy balance sheet. Operationally, it was a year of strong subscriber growth, great new television series, record library sales and a successful pivot to alternative release strategies for many of our films. Beginning with our studio businesses, Our film and television production teams did an extraordinary job keeping productions running with minimal disruption. We recently had 7 films, 19 scripted series and 20 unscripted shows shooting around the world at the same time, keeping Starz programming on schedule and responding to unprecedented demand from 3rd party buyers. Though nobody could have imagined that we would be Operating for most of the year in a world without movie theaters, we pivoted quickly to new distribution models for films such as Run, Antebellum, Betal and I Still Believe.
By capitalizing on the optionality of our slate and our ability to future proof our model, We ended the year with a 42% increase in Motion Picture Group profitability. And though the Motion Picture business continues to evolve in on 13 films during the pandemic year as we prepare both for the continued reopening of theaters and the exciting With the latest installment of our blockbuster action franchise, John Wick 4, The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, adapted from Suzanne Collins' Runaway Best Seller The star studded Borderlands White Bird, the follow-up to our global hit Wonder a nostalgic reimagining of our classic Intellectual Property, Dirty Dancing. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, based on Judy Blume's iconic novel, Franchise Property Monopoly and Shotgun Wedding starring Jennifer Lopez. Our slate will be a compelling value proposition across every platform As our spectrum of buyers continued to expand to include new players like Roku and IMDB and we capitalized on an opportunity to return to the network Our television group is coming off one of its best years ever with 13 new series orders.
All 8 of our pilots picked up to series and all 7 of last year's freshman series renewed for their 2nd seasons. We've also been busy aligning our content businesses Behind the growth of Starz and in fiscal 2021, we hit our full stride with 15 Lions Gate Television Series launched preparing to launch We're in production for Starz. For 20 years, we've been investing 1,000,000,000 of dollars in creating premium evergreen content, And the proof of concept is the record performance of our library. Our library revenues continue to grow year over year And reached an all time high of $780,000,000 in fiscal 2021, driven by the steady march of new SVOD and AVOD Platforms around the world with an enormous appetite for content. And when we look at the success of our recent library packages, It's interesting to note that instead of 2 or 3 big drivers, contributions are spread across hundreds of different profitable titles, All of them growing in value over time.
Ours is a big, young and vibrant library With over 80% of library revenue coming from titles produced since 2000 with many monetization cycles ahead. Turning to Starz. We grew subscribers by 23% year over year with 29,500,000 global at year end excluding the nearly 1,000,000 subs from Pantaya. Importantly, 16,700,000 of our global subs are streaming, Well exceeding our fiscal year end target of $13,000,000 to $15,000,000 and taking us past the digital inflection point of more over the top than linear subscribers. Our domestic and international businesses both made significant contributions to this growth.
In the United States, we reached the 10,000,000 streaming subscriber milestone, thanks to a focused content strategy and a slate loaded with exciting new series, Ghost and pea Valley recorded the number 1 and number 2 ranked Starz premieres ever, with Outlander's 5th season marking a multi platform viewing series high. Hightown established itself as a critical favorite With a dedicated fan base and seduce, the story of the Nexeum sex cult was a great success in the unscripted space. Internationally, it was a year highlighted by the 70% increase of our STARZPLAY subscriber base to 8,600,000, an Expanding global distribution footprint, a successful best of global SVOD content strategy that continues to set us apart and new bundle deals driving our penetration in key territories. STARZPLAY's combination of premium programming, Speed to market and operational flexibility attracted more than 20 new partners in 15 countries as we have grown our footprint to Total of 58 countries within 3 years of our global launch. This head start allows us to continue to access best in class acquisitions Such as Normal People, The Great, Gangs of London and the upcoming Doctor.
Death to complement Star's original series and Lions Gate Films and Library Content. We're taking the same approach to growing STARZPLAY internationally that is driving the success of our domestic platform, Emphasizing value over scale and rolling out a targeted premium service, not a broad general entertainment platform, One that can sit on top of other platforms and one that is defined by its exceptionally curated competitively priced premium grown up content. To paraphrase former First Lady Michelle Obama, when they go broad, we go premium. Turning to the outlook for fiscal 2022. We will execute a targeted, focused, but substantial ramp in content across our businesses.
This will include an expanded and strategically focused slated stars as we increase our number of scripted series by 70%. Kicking off with the debut of Run the World to rave reviews 2 weeks ago and continuing with the next two installments of the Power Universe, The return of Outlander, Ghost and Hightown and the new series Blindspotting, Heels, BMF and Shining Vale among others, It's our strongest slate ever. Please take a look at the sizzle reel posted on our IR website after the call. With our acceleration in content spend this upcoming fiscal year, we're forecasting even better net adds domestically and internationally in fiscal 2022 and in fiscal 2021. While some of our peers are seeing the slowdown as we lap the pandemic's impact on streaming, Our highly targeted original strategy enables us to project a year over year net ad improvement that accelerates in the Q2 of a year With a back loaded programming schedule and in reassessing our historical target of 50,000,000 to 60,000,000 subscribers by fiscal 2025, We are now tracking at the high end of the range.
Approximately 80% of those 60,000,000 subscribers will be streaming subs. Our television group will also deliver one of its biggest slates, growing from 10 premium scripted series to 26, Nearly all of them locked and importantly half of them for Starz. While their profitability is concentrated later in their life cycles As they reach syndication and enter our library, they have immediate value for Starz. And as the films we greenlit and start Shooting during the pandemic begin to arrive in theaters later this year. We expect strong growth in theatrical revenues in fiscal 2022 that will continue to build into fiscal 2023 when we'll have an exciting and impressive slate to deliver to our exhibition partners and to Starz.
In closing, as we begin to emerge from the pandemic, I'd like to share a few learnings from the past year. We amplified our internal communications in the form of weekly letters from management and Friday meetings in which I had the opportunity to talk with nearly every one of our employees across the company, initiatives that we will continue going forward. We've all learned new ways of doing business, mastered new technologies and developed new skills operating in a virtual environment, And many of these will form the cornerstone of our workplace of the future. Finally, though we were tested by the pandemic, We rose to the challenges as a family by pivoting, adjusting, adapting and showing the resilience and resourcefulness that we will continue to bring to bear on an industry undergoing the greatest disruption in its history. Now I'll turn things over to Jimmy.
Thanks, John, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll briefly discuss our fiscal 4th quarter financial results and update you on our balance sheet. Fiscal 4th quarter adjusted OIBDA was $77,000,000 with total revenue coming in at 8.70 $6,000,000 driven by strong revenue growth at Starz and continued demand for library content. Reported fully diluted earnings per share was a loss of $0.17 a share and fully diluted adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.00 a share With adjusted free cash flow for the quarter coming in at $3,100,000 Now let me briefly discuss The fiscal Q4 performance of the underlying segments compared to the prior year quarter. You can follow along in our trending schedules that have been posted to our website and show greater detail around our Global Media Network subscribers adjusted for the sale of Pentaya.
Media Networks quarterly revenue was $401,000,000 and segment profit came in at $43,000,000 driven largely by domestic and international over the top subscriber growth. Globally, including STARZPLAY Arabia, the company grew over the top subscribers 3,000,000 sequentially Or 22% as you can see in our trending schedules. Starz domestic over the top subscribers increased 5% Sequentially, while STARZPLAY International over the top subscribers grew 104% as we continue to roll out We ended the quarter with 29,500,000 total global subscribers. Linear subs declined to 12,800,000 while total Global Media Network over the top subs reached $16,700,000 representing 69% year over year growth. Recall, this exceeds the top end Of the 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 global over the top subscriber range to which we previously guided, And again, this is without the benefit of Pentaya.
We have now reached 10,000,000 over the top domestic subscribers, representing growth of 47% year over year. Currently, nearly 80% of all domestic subscribers on either over the top or a la carte plans. Now turning to Motion Pictures. Revenue declined on limited theatrical leases to $292,000,000 while segment profit of $62,000,000 reflects a tough comp against the prior year quarter, which included the theatrical release of Knives Out as well as ancillary sales of John Wick 3. Television revenue for the quarter came in at $211,000,000 and segment profit was 9,000,000 The results of our television group reflect a tough comp against the prior year quarter, which included licensing of library titles, Spartacus and Meet the Browns.
Now turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with leverage at 4.0 times trailing 12 months adjusted OIBDA or 3.1 times excluding our investment in STARZPLAY International. We continue to retain significant liquidity with $529,000,000 of cash on hand And $1,500,000,000 of undrawn revolver. Just after the quarter ended, we opportunistically refinanced $445,000,000 of Term Loan A and all of our unsecured notes, both reducing our average annual interest cost and extending the tenure by 5 8 years to calendar year 20262029, respectively. We also extended $1,250,000,000 of our $1,500,000,000 undrawn revolver to calendar year 20 26 with no increase in rate.
We remain committed to strengthening our balance sheet and paying down debt. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Nilay for Q and A.
Thanks, Jimmy. Operator, can you open the call for questions?
And further assist you. You may withdraw your question at any time by repeating the same command. If you're using the speakerphone, we ask that you please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers. And our first question will come from the line of Thomas Yih. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. This is Thomas Yeh at Morgan Stanley. My first one, in light of some of the industry consolidation that's been happening, I would love to hear more about how you frame the TAM for premium relative to broad for Starz and the impact also that it might have on the content production side of the house. And then a second one for Jeff on Starz. Can you give us a little bit color on the guidance for net adds to accelerate in 2022?
What are you seeing on the churn front and the cadence of original programming that gives you the confidence for even higher U. S. Penetration as we head into the 2nd half of the next year. Thanks.
Thanks, Thomas. Jeff will take that.
So, Thomas, I think if you take a step back and think of how the Streaming industry is kind of unfolding right now. We really see it in kind of 3 groups of services. There's a kind of basic and broad based streamers That are really these big scale ad supported kind of all things to all people in the homes that we think in order to be profitable and to get They've got to be somewhere between 250,000,000 to 300,000,000 cells globally. The second tier is where we sit, which is that premium service that's a very edgy, non ad Supported, really tailored service. We think again, if you look at the linear domestic world, there's any kind of guide We need to be somewhere between 20% 30% to be profitable there.
As John said in his prepared remarks, we see ourselves Coming in by 2025 at the high end of the range around 60,000,000 subscribers. And really in that And our model is a little different than you see in that broad based here where we're more wholesale than they are retail. And then the 3rd box is a very talented niche So we think we need to get to somewhere in the $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 range. And as John said, we'll come in the high end of that range by 2025. If you the second question, if you look at domestic, we're coming into our biggest and broadest slate in the history of the business.
We're going from 7 originals this year Twelve originals next year. And the way those originals lay out, it's really stacked more in the second, third and fourth quarter. And so When we look at how we kind of forecast the business, which is really a data driven approach, each piece of content is given a subscriber acquisition target and goal. And so when you start to layer in Multiple shows on every week, week to week, over 52 weeks, you start to see those ads kind of accelerate. And again, I'll remind everybody as we've talked about on a few of these calls, we're really playing more of a retention game by bringing subscribers on the 2 core demos that we have And filling those gaps, so when Power comes on the air or Ghost comes on the air, then we bring Raising Kanan on, then we bring a P Valley back, then we bring a HiTown back, We're moving subscribers from one show to the next to the next.
This quarter we saw churn at an all time low and we think as we get into this robust slate, it will come down to single digits.
Great. And maybe if I can squeeze one last one in. There was a bit of a sequential decline in the blended U. S. ARPU for Starz.
Can you talk a little bit about The dynamic there and where you think that settles out, are we lapping some noise from the fixed variable transition with Comcast or anything else related to the mix shift?
Thanks. Really in the quarter, you saw a lot of discounting and promotional activity from not only on our own app, but from our partners like an Amazon And Hulu, and so there's some discounting noise in the number. We still think that on a total domestic basis, ARPU will be around $5.70 The $6 and remember that all 80% of all of our subscribers domestically are in some kind of a la carte or revenue share deal. So that's why you see that kind of blended average handling around that number.
Okay, very helpful. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Thomas. Operator, can we take the next question?
Tim Nollen, your line is open.
Great. Thanks. One number that jumped out to me on the training schedules was the international OTT number of $4,900,000 I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you basically doubled that sequentially? I think you mentioned new markets, but any more commentary on that. And then a follow on, could you talk about profitability of the OTT business?
I think you've In the past talked about it being close to the same profitability as linear. Any further discussion you might Be able to offer us in terms of profitability given these much larger sub targets now by 2025? Thanks.
Yes. So in the quarter, we saw the a la carte international business Accelerate and then there was a opportunistic large volume deal that we did in a market that we thought was great to extend the brand and really build the business In the quarter, so both sides of the business really accelerated. We feel really great about that. Long term projections, obviously, we continue to look at the business and think on a Long term basis by 2025, our a la carte ARPU will be somewhere on the $3 range as we've talked about. And if you look out from 25 a little farther, we think Globally, the business will have a 20% margin.
Thanks.
Thanks, Tim. Operator, can we get the next question, please?
Ketan Murrell, your line is open.
Great. Thanks for taking the questions. 2, if I could. First On M and A, obviously, there have been a few changes across the ecosystem over the last few weeks. It's somewhat of an open ended question, but I'd love your perspectives on the shifting landscape and if your views on what role Lionsgate might play have changed.
And maybe second, You've entered fiscal 2022 with encouraging momentum, though I assume this year still isn't too representative of your full earnings potential, Especially given the ramp up of programming spend, I'm not sure how granular you'd be willing to get and I'm not expecting specific guidance, but as we Think about a world post COVID, can you think about can you help us think about some of your financial expectations beyond this year, whether that's specific to fiscal 2023 or further out or just any high level commentary on the puts and takes, that would be very helpful. Thanks.
Jimmy is going to we'll flip those answers and Jimmy is going to go first on the financials.
Yes. Look, as you noted, we're really excited about fiscal 2022, particularly our investment opportunities, right? There's some great opportunities to lean in and our content across all of our businesses really and it's supported by hard data, proven track record And it's going to drive revenues both short term and certainly long term as well. So We'll be able to shoulder that increased spend in content and marketing with pretty much a modest Fairly modest impact on the earnings and cash flows during the year. And that's no surprise when you look at analyst Expectations for 2022 as an investment year.
And then obviously, we're so well positioned moving in beyond that into 2023 and beyond with regards to the ramp up in content and what that does for the out years.
So I'll take the M and A question. Both of the big deals that have happened within what the last 2 or 3 weeks, I think are Pretty simple there, a resounding affirmation, I'd say, about the value of content, the value of IPs, and the value of Brands. I think sort of our approach and where we fit in is pretty simple at this point in time, which is With all this disruption, I think we've got a benefit in terms of lack of disruption here
at the company and of cohesiveness.
And I think that the key thing that we're going to do is keep our head down and just keep executing on our plan. I think, the thing that we don't want to get Attracted by frankly is this concept of scale because we think our job is actually just to create for our shareholders outside value. That's what we think we're doing with Starz. When people refer to us like this morning in one of those M and A articles as having a niche service, We don't think 30,000,000 subs is a niche service. If we wanted to be a niche services, obviously, we wouldn't have sold Pantaya.
So, we think 30,000,000 going to That's a big business. We want to be the market leader in premium, and that's how we'll build our value. So Obviously, we talk to everyone, we listen to everything, but our main job right now, as I say, is to create outsized value and the way we're going to do it is by keeping our head down, Having all of our businesses talk to each other 10 times a day, which is what they do, so that, again, as Michael and I have said before, 1 plus 1 plus 1 is way more than 3.
Thank you both.
Thanks, Ketkin. Operator, could we get the next question please?
Alexia Quadrani, your line is open.
Hi, thank you. Just two questions, if I may. The first one is On Starz, you saw some nice acceleration in sub growth in the quarter, in a period where many of your peers kind of saw moderation I'm curious, do you think it's just really entirely content driven or were there other factors And then my second question really is on the theatrical releases and the windowing, I guess, and everybody sort of taking a different approach here, though I think most students are sort of settling around kind of the 45 day window. I'm sure you've had your own conversations with the exhibitors. I'm curious what your thoughts are about windowing and general
Great. We'll have Jeff go first and then Joe.
Hey, it's Jeff. Obviously, in the pandemic, we saw a lot of discovery of stars and a lot of consumers for the first time, which we continue to see the engagement on the service I know over the last 3 years, we continue to see the monthly hours increase and we obviously saw that in the pandemic, but that was starting 2, 3 years ago. I think the subscriber additions that John talked about in his prepared remarks on 2022 tours versus 2021, again, is really driven By the size of the slate that we have coming and the scheduling of the slate that we have coming, as I talked about earlier, churn is at an all time low. We think this consumer that found the service during the pandemic are still with us watching our service, and we think that will continue. We've got 3 power series coming this year and Outlander coming back this year.
So 4 big tentpole events and freshman shows like Black Mafia family and heels behind that. And so we couldn't be more excited about the subscriber growth that we've got planned based on the content that's coming online right now.
Hi, Alexia. On the theatrical business, there certainly is a lot happening in windows and we I've really taken the approach for ourselves to really look at each film as its own piece of business and how that is best served. You'll see in the case of You'll see in the case of Spiral, our metrics actually are improving on that film. The metrics in this new model are very strong. That will be That will have had 3 weeks of a theatrical window exclusive and then we'll stay in theaters while it goes to premium video on demand.
We've got Hitman's Bodyguard coming up next in a slightly different window that will settle out just around 45 days within a couple of days of that. It's based on when we want to go to a different secondary window exploitation. And so I think what you're going to see and certainly what we've experienced is that We love the theatrical business. We're working very close with exhibitors. Exhibitors have been great partners in working with us and With our competitors on finding the right way for us to collaborate, help support that market, but maximize the value of our titles.
So I don't I think that's going to continue for a bit and we'll see where it sells out. But we're kind of both we're very and I would say the last I would say is we are very bullish on the theatrical market. I think you're going to see a really big weekend this weekend. And yet, I think the real news here is there's A lot of ways we can exploit and monetize our titles now and have great partners to deal with.
Thank you.
Thanks, Alexia. Operator, could we get the next question please?
Matthew Thornton, your line is open.
Hey, good afternoon everybody. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe a couple of quick ones if I could. I guess first, STARZPLAY Arabia, You guys almost doubled your international OTT business. STARZPLAY Arabia, however, doesn't seem to be moving much quarter to quarter.
So my question is, is that one that you're still As a strategic acquisition at some point or is that one perhaps you could monetize similar to what we do with Pantaya And just go it alone, given the momentum you already have elsewhere internationally, I guess that's the first question. Second question, international and I apologize if I missed The international breakeven, I remember a couple of years back, we talked about fiscal 'twenty three, but that was before you guys kind of upsized the subscriber guidance out to fiscal 5, any update to how you're thinking about international breakeven? And again, I apologize if I missed that one. Thanks guys.
Yes, STARZPLAY Arabia, we really like what MAZ has Bill, there, we think they're again, they're continue to be the market leader. I think his 19 medium countries they have experienced Some obviously economic issues in some of the markets that we've seen, but ultimately we really feel good about the business And we'll continue to watch it and watch it continue to return to growth. And then we'll make a decision on whether we Continue to take a controlling interest in that, continue to stay as a viable strategic partner or monetize it some other way. But we feel really good about what MAZ is building and we Hope those countries and we'll see those countries return back to growth in the next couple of quarters.
Yes. And on a run rate basis, We still expect to be positive in calendar 'twenty three and that would be without SPA.
That's great. Maybe I could slip one more in quickly. Coming back to some of the recent deals, specifically the MGM Multiple. So it looks to me like they reported library cash flow numbers similar to you guys. I think theirs was 420, so it puts their Enterprise valued about 20 times that number.
I'm just curious if there's any obviously you have the Epics business, which comps against Starz Pretty well. But on the library side, is there any difference between the way you guys think about library cash flow versus what they I'm just curious if you have any thoughts there. Thanks again, guys.
Yes. Great observation. Look, this just Proves the value of content, content, content, right? And our library is incredibly valuable with 17,000 titles no matter how you look at it. Really, when you look at the scarcity value and against our enterprise value, I mean, however whatever multiple you put on it, right, With a 50% cash margin and $700,000,000 plus revenues, you can See that clearly the library will substantiate a significant portion of our current enterprise value.
Thanks, Matt. Operator, could we get the next question, please?
Stephen Cahall, your line is open.
Thanks. Maybe first for
me, I was just wondering if you
could touch on the cadence of originals that you have this fiscal year at Starz, so we can kind of think about the subscriber growth Maybe of originals this year versus what you had last year? And then just also wondering if you have an idea of what your P and Might be in fiscal 2022 or how many films you're planning to release since I know that's just an expense you didn't really have last year that's going to come back. And maybe lastly, Jimmy, I think a lot of the annual free cash flow this year, adjusted free cash flow came from the production loans and the tax credit facility. Maybe just help us understand that a little bit since that's kind of a funky free cash flow dynamic. Thank you.
Yes. From the content cadence perspective domestically on As we said, we've gone from 7 originals to 12 this year, heavily loaded more in the second and third quarter this year than last year. And so I think you'll see The subscriber cadence follow that as well.
Yes. And your question about the
P and A spend, You'd expect to see, obviously, as we expand theatrically with market coming back there, probably almost double our Broader theatrical releases, so you're going to see an increase in the P and A spend, right? Not to the levels that you saw in fiscal 2020, But maybe something along the 60% to 70% of maybe the fiscal 2020 pre pandemic levels For P and A spend, right. And then in the context of free cash flow, well, I mean, as you noted, we finished $300,000,000 of Free cash flow in fiscal 2021. There were certainly some benefits there from managing our working capital, but More than 50% of that, more than lion's share was obviously operational. So We can continue to fully fund all of our businesses and the increase in content marketing spend as well as the fully funding SPI, which by the way Our STARZPLAY International peak cash funding, we just lapped in fiscal 2021.
So really feel good about that
Thanks, Steve. Operator, could we get the next question, please?
You certainly. Next, we'll open the line of Alan Gould. Your line is open.
Yes.
Thank you. I've got three questions, please, and thanks for taking the questions. First, Jeff, what gives you the confidence now that you'll hit the high end of that $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 range? It implies about $9,000,000 a year if you were to Smoothed it out. I'll take that one and then I'll go to the other questions.
Hey, Alan. Thanks for the question. As we look at our The countries that we've launched in our distribution deals and as we start to lap the distribution deals, more content comes on, we sign more distribution deals. We look at the math and we see that as we build up this business over time, we're really going to end up at the higher end of the range. And as we see the business continue to accelerate, we've got great confidence We'll actually continue to move to that number.
Yes, Alan, I'd even add again, when you look at what the expectation of these basic streamers are somewhere between 300,000,000, 400,000,000 subs and we're projecting out in that same period of time what 20 Percent of their breadth, if you will,
it seems quite reasonable.
When you understand again that we're building a premium service That sits on top of every other service. It's not competitive that the local players that are emerging, they are competitive to the basic Streamers are not competitive to us. And so we feel that we can package and bundle with virtually every other platform out there. Who knows, Maybe a little conservative, but I mean we're basing that just on the current results that we have and what we're seeing in the marketplace.
Okay. That's very helpful, John. Question for Kevin. Kevin, I've never seen someone have all their pilots picked up and all their freshman shows renewed. Can you tell us a little I mean congratulations on that.
What is happening in the TV space?
Thanks. It's
a great question and we're really happy. We have an amazing team. A huge amount of this goes To the ongoing integration and relationship between Lions Gate and Starz and what Jeff and Ali and Superna and Christina are all doing Along with our group, half of those 4 of those 8 are with stars and also just demand in the marketplace. The platform expansions, consolidations notwithstanding, are just bringing about more spending, more demand for high end premium Programming and a big volume business on unscripted. We're in both of those areas in a really smart way with an extraordinary creative team internally And an amazing lineup of producers and writers and artists and directors and just hitting on all cylinders.
So good timing and I think preparation and despite pandemic, Productivity through the roof.
I think it's important to note as well because sometimes people will say, well, why aren't you only doing shows for And the great thing about such a large portion of that business being to 3rd parties is that
we're getting 3rd parties to
pay for almost the full price Those productions and virtually every single one of them will return home to us or go in our library, could even end up some coin on Starz. So we like that business and we think it's pretty critical as well, Alan, that we service all of the talent that Got it. And so that we want to keep our talent happy, we want to keep them busy, and we want to keep them productive. So if we can keep them doing that sometimes for 3rd parties, As I say, fully funded or mostly funded by those 3rd parties and it's premium content that will ultimately be in our library forever.
So even the big broadcast network shows are not don't have huge deficits associated with them, you're saying?
We have renegotiated virtually Every one of those deals and what's interesting again as they have more vertically integrated, so with their streaming Our companions, if you will, and with their cable companions, we've actually opened up windows for them that didn't exist before. So they're paying a much larger percentage of the license fee, but they're getting more early rights. And yet again, We're always getting some rights, which we can exploit immediately off their 3rd party platforms. And then as I say later on, Those are almost always shows that are going to revert back to us and go into our library and the Evergreen properties.
Okay. And one quick one for Jimmy. Despite the pandemic, you were able to spend more $1,600,000,000 this year Investment in content, so you're able to keep producing. How much bigger do you think that's going to increase in fiscal 2022?
Well, Alan, yes, as you noted, as John's referenced in remarks and as we've answered questions, we're definitely looking at this 'twenty two as an investment year, Great opportunity to increase content marketing spend. I think maybe the best way to frame it is if you go back to pre pandemic levels fiscal 2022 and think about Content marketing spend being up, say 30% plus versus each pre pandemic levels. And just point out to you that, again, while there's some moderation in free cash flow and earnings, it's driving short term Revenues as well as long term revenues, so I expect that to be fairly modest.
I was actually referring to on the cash flow statement, your increase in investment in Filament TV programming rights?
Yes, that's correct.
That will be up 30%. Okay.
Thank you. Yes. That's a cash spend comment. Both the content the 30% is a content marketing because Without marketing, you really why spend the content? So on an aggregate, If you broke it down, I would say the content spend relative to that would be up probably over 50% and less so obviously on the marketing side of Thanks, because keep in mind that in fiscal 2020, we had a pretty full level of spend on P and A.
Right. Okay.
Thanks for taking the questions.
Thanks, Alan. Operator, could we get the next question, please?
And our last question will come from the line of Jim Goss. Your line is open.
Thanks. Regarding the alternative release strategies, and you were talking a little about the windows before in a couple of your new releases, what are the drivers or Patrons and expectations for the various alternative lease strategies.
Thanks, Jim. That's a good question. So, We look at it a bunch of different ways. I'd first say we bifurcated domestically and internationally. Domestically, As you know, we self distribute here really in all media.
Internationally, we self distribute in Latin America and the UK, and we license otherwise. And So we've really opened up as the appetite and the ways in which you can exploit it internationally have grown At an extraordinary rate, we sort of opened up the approach to how we monetize content internationally. And what I can tell you is we're seeing Significant increases in what we're getting and the ways in which we're distributing. If you look at the last couple of titles, you'll see The last couple of things we put into production when they finally reach market, you will see in the mix traditional theatrical Distributors, you'll see footprints for streaming platforms, you'll see some theatrical depivo sort of in everything in between. We're able to look at the market agnostically, open what are we trying to achieve creatively and then maximize monetization.
I can tell you that It's a really exciting time over there and there's a lot of upside to be garnered. On the domestic front, we've, As you know, just done our paid television deal with Starz, and so we're very focused on putting into production the kind of content that's going to Help grow that business and feed the big theatrical appetite. And then from a windowing perspective, It really depends on the piece of content. And so as I said, in the case of Spiral, a shorter theatrical Leaning then into pVOD, moving into more traditional exploitation and then accelerating a window for Starz was the best way to monetize that particular piece of content. In the case of Hitman's Bodyguard, it's a little bit different.
And we sort of approach each film agnostically And look at that moment in time, look at release dates, look at competition, and the best way to monetize it. And so it just gives us a lot of flexibility, Both from a dating perspective, honestly, it also gives us more flexibility in terms
of how we look at dates,
as well as how we're going to ultimately monetize.
Are you able to give somewhat on film rent splits, that you feel you'd have value And the greater flexibility in the windowing as a result of that?
Are you saying are we having to change our film rent splits? Is that the question?
Yes. I mean, if you have a less consistent pattern than maybe you once did and all the windows have changed over the past year, It seems like there could be some give you need to get in order to take advantage of the Shorter windows, you'd probably need to maybe accept less of the domestic box office in terms of the split with the exhibitors.
Yes. What I would tell you is that we're having all of those conversations. There haven't been meaningful shifts in any one direction, Up or down and any adjustments are frankly fairly small if and when we need to do that. Obviously, we're only making we're here to drive customers back into those theaters and be successful in that space. At any time, we're going to make a decision to change our splits.
And again, if we do that, they will not be significant. It's because there's a bigger pie overall to harvest out of our content.
Okay. And then one final one. Could you discuss the pace of the return to your ultimate targeted film releases In terms of numbers of releases and the mix in terms of the release strategies by theatrical versus other alternatives.
Sure. So, we're moving back into the theatrical business for fiscal 'twenty two. We won't be I don't know the exact number, probably somewhere between 50% 60% of where we were So we're at the peak in 2019 2020. We hope to we plan to be returning to what we're calling full form of wide release by 2023 and continuing forward from there. But we look at the wide release again from the perspective of wide theatrical release for wide alternatives.
And so I would say 2022, we're Up in it a little bit and by 2023, we should be fully back to form.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thanks, everyone. Please refer to
the press releases and events tab under the Investor Relations section of the company's website for a discussion of certain non GAAP forward looking measures discussed on this call. And also, as John mentioned
in his prepared remarks, please check
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Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.