COLORADO AVE — Santa Monica-based Lionsgate, a diversified entertainment company, announced Wednesday a second quarter loss of $24.6 million, or 18 cents per share, compared to a loss of $29.7 million, or 22 cents per share, in the previous year’s second quarter.
Executives blamed the loss partly on the weak performance of feature films compared to those released last year, including the highly successful action flick “The Expendables,” one of the company’s highest-grossing films.
“Although we were disappointed by the performance of our films in the quarter, we were pleased with the strong and growing contributions of all of our other core businesses,” said Lionsgate Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jon Feltheimer. “We believe that our film performance will improve significantly and become more consistent … .”
The second quarter of fiscal 2012 ended Sept. 30.
Lionsgate told investors in late September that the box office underperformance of movies “Conan the Barbarian,” “Warrior” and “Abduction” would cause it to lose more money than expected.
The studio’s box office revenue plunged 71 percent during the quarter due to its poorly received movies, helping to push overall motion picture revenue down 36 percent, to $218.9 million, according to a press release issued by Lionsgate. The studio saw a 15 percent boost in home entertainment revenue, to $175 million, however, largely from the sale of four previous seasons of the television show “Mad Men” to Netflix for nearly $900,000 per episode.
Lionsgate’s small but growing television production business fared better, with revenue up 21 percent, to $139.2 million, as it delivered new episodes of programs including “Weeds,” “Blue Mountain State,” Tyler Perry’s “Meet the Browns” and the first season of Kelsey Grammer’s melodrama “Boss.”
Revenue from digital distribution of product from its extensive library of movies and television shows — a business on which Lionsgate is counting for much of its future growth — jumped 123 percent in the quarter, to $65 million.
Lionsgate’s filmed entertainment backlog reached a record $550.1 million during the quarter. Filmed entertainment backlog represents the amount of future revenue not yet recorded from contracts for the licensing of films and television product for television exhibition and in international markets.
Lionsgate G&A expenses in the second quarter were $29.5 million, a 12 percent reduction from the prior year’s second quarter due to reductions in costs related to shareholder activism as well as a 7 percent decline in other G&A expenses.
Lionsgate maintains a diversified presence in motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication, home entertainment, family entertainment, digital distribution and new channel platforms.
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