1924170, and they shit the bed on their Q4 earnings release yesterday. Posted by Flash80, Fri Feb-24-12 02:16 PM
missed expectations on revenue and EPS ($-0.09 vs. $0.20)
time to dump the film division, but vince is completely myopic... (swipe from their conf. call)
During the quarter, WWE Studios recognized revenue of $4.3 million compared to $7.9 million in the prior year quarter. The decline was driven by the relative performance of our film releases in the current and prior year quarters. Film profits on an unadjusted basis declined $13.2 million from the prior year quarter, primarily due to $12.2 million in non-cash film impairment charges. These charges stem from lower DVD sales projections and revised ultimate expectations for our previous releases, The Reunion, See No Evil, Knucklehead and The Chaperone as well as pending releases, Bending the Rules and Barricade.
Excluding the impairment charges for these films, adjusted film profit declined $1.1 million due to lower receipts from our license films. As mentioned in the previous call and reiterated by then, we continue to monitor the performance of our film business and make adjustments to improve our future performance. Some recent changes to our approach include increasing emphasis on genres with greater pay TV and international appeal. Using co-productions to reduce our equity investment per film and selling the international distribution rights prior to the completion of our film projects. The production of two films for release in 2012, No One Lives and The Day exemplify this approach.
We've also recently announced a partnership with 20th Century Fox to co-produce and co-finance, redirect to DVD title, including the third installment of our successful Marine franchise. In total, we expect to release between three and five movies in 2012.
As mentioned previously, there are number of compelling reasons for WWE to participate in the movie business, including leveraging our core competencies and content creation and extending our audience reach. Although movies will not be released under this revised approach until the latter part of 2012, we expect that will reduce the risk and yields greater returns over the long-term.
|