During its second-quarter earnings call today, AMC Networks provided some insight into current and future growth trends for its subscription streaming video services.
AMC Networks said it added more streaming video subscribers over a six-month period than ever before. CEO Josh Sapan said that through mid-year 2019, AMC’s SVODs have added approximately 400,000 subscribers in aggregate, and that the company is on target to end 2019 “comfortably ahead of 2 million subscribers.”
Sapan said that AMC Networks’ cumulative streaming subscriber total will be between 3.5 million and 4 million by 2022, and between 5 million and 7 million by 2024. The company also expects more than half a billion dollars in revenue by 2024 from its four SVODs.
AMC’s subscription video services – including Shudder, Sundance Now, Acorn TV and Urban Movie Channel – are all fairly niche in their programming strategies, as opposed to more general interest entertainment services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. Sapan said that as these services reach “sufficient scale,” AMC Networks has been increasingly adding more original content to the lineups, which Sapan said has been resonating with subscribers.
RELATED: AMC Networks’ Q1 revenues rise 5.9% with help from streaming video business
“Given the genetics of our SVOD services, we have the ability to target and retain subscribers…with radically more efficiency than mainstream SVOD services that are pursuing broad general interest audiences that often experience, as we all know, people coming in and out for an individual show or series,” Sapan said.
AMC Networks’ international and other business segment – which houses the company’s subscription streaming services – was responsible for driving revenue increases during the second quarter. The segment’s revenue rose 22.4% year over year to approximately $180 million, while the national networks segment revenues decreased 3.6% to $605 million.
Consolidated second-quarter net revenues increased 1.4% to $772 million and operating income fell 11.1% to $170 million.