AMC Networks CFO Talks Strike Ending, Landmark Charter-Disney Deal

Etan Vlessing
·2 min read
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As the Hollywood actors and writers strikes are behind AMC Networks, CFO Patrick O’Connell told an investors conference the dual labor actions had no material financial impact on the cable channel giant.

“I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a nothingburger, but it’s as close to that as it can be financially. So we’re set up well going into ’24,” O’Connell told the B of A Securities Leveraged Finance Conference during a session that was webcast on Tuesday.

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The CFO of AMC Networks, which operates such cable channel brands as AMC, IFC and Sundance TV, as well as such streamers as AMC+, Acorn TV, and Shudder, also applauded Walt Disney and Charter Communications recently unveiling a landmark carriage agreement.

“In hindsight, people will look back and see that as a seminal moment in the evolution of the media landscape. I’ve got to give credit to Chris Winfrey for his leadership at Charter, and also Bog Iger at Disney coming to the table and cutting a deal that will be very much a template-type structure for negotiations going forward,” O’Connell said.

He also addressed a challenging advertising market and other headwinds for AMC Networks are it attempts a corporate turnaround under new CEO Kristin Dolan. “Everything is on the table. We took some tough medicine at the end of last year,” O’Connell said of cost-cutting measures, including one-time restructuring costs, taken to offset revenue declines.

He added the company had no near-term plans to sell off non-core assets. “We’ll consider all comers, but at this point there’s nothing on the horizon that we see. We’ve got a lot of interesting assets. I think some of them are under-appreciated by the market. If the time comes, we may look to monetize some of them, but there’s nothing imminent right now,” he told the investors conference.

For now, AMC Network is also continuing to face increased cord-cutting amid a pivot to the streaming space. “There’s no doubt it’s hard to make the case that there’s not a secular shift on the advertising side away from (linear) TV. Let’s just call it what it is,” O’Connell argued.

He pointed to AMC Networks introducing Audience+, a new advertising insights and data targeting platform, to better tailor its channels to marketers. “So that’s how we’re sort of counter-punching against what we see as a probably continued tough environment in the advertising space,” O’Connnell added.

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