HALIFAX — Kids and family entertainment company WildBrain announced yesterday its revenues for the second quarter of its 2022 fiscal year increased 8% year-over-year to $153.2 million compared to Q2 2021, reflecting growth in its WildBrain Spark and consumer products divisions, the company said in a press release.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, 2021, revenues for its AVOD business WildBrain Spark increased 16% to $18 million compared to the same period in the previous year, “fueled by continued advertising recovery,” according to the press release.
“Higher revenue at Spark reflects increasing monetization of our large audience, driven by premium content where we own the IP or share in consumer products. Kids continued to be highly engaged on Spark, which continued to attract wide audience engagement with 8.3 billion views across 51.5 billion minutes of video watched on our network in Q2 2022. This compared to 9.5 billion views and 59.7 billion minutes in watch time in Q2 2021 as consumption patterns normalize from last year’s peak viewership during Covid-19 lockdowns,” reads the press release.
WildBrain’s consumer products revenue grew 35% year-over-year to $62.5 million in Q2 2022 compared to Q2 2021, “reflecting the strength of the Peanuts franchise, supported by consistent output of new content,” the release says.
The company’s content production and distribution revenue decreased 11% to $61.3 million in the second quarter of 2022 compared to the same quarter of 2021.
“Lower revenue in the current quarter reflected a robust pipeline of premium productions including Sonic Prime, new Peanuts content and work starting on new animated series Jonny Jetboy as well as a number of large distribution deals, compared against a high comp in Q2 2021, which included $34.3 million from the Peanuts library deal (with Apple TV+),” the company’s management discussion and analysis (MD&A) explains.
WildBrain’s Canadian television broadcasting revenue decreased 3% to $11.5 million in Q2 2022 compared to Q2 2021, “reflecting subscriber erosion in line with the broader linear TV market,” the MD&A says.
The company’s adjusted EBITDA decreased 6% to $27.3 million in Q2 2022 compared to the same quarter of 2021, while its net income in Q2 2022 dropped to $4.6 million, a decrease of $6.7 million.
WildBrain’s press release noted the company’s many recent IP activations and partnership deals.
“We activated yet another enduring IP brand with the recent announcement of an all-new Degrassi series for HBO Max in the US. Furthermore, HBO Max has licensed the entire 14-season, 385-episode library of Degrassi: The Next Generation for the US. This partnership — the largest deal in the history of the brand — underscores the importance of our ownership of a portfolio of franchise IP in the highly competitive current market amongst streaming platforms,” said Eric Ellenbogen, WildBrain’s CEO, in the press release.
“We’re also demonstrating our strengths in developing and sustaining new IP. We’ve just delivered to Netflix a third season plus three new family specials for our original series, Chip & Potato — a burgeoning preschool brand that we’re taking to the toy shelf under a licensing agreement with JAKKS Pacific.
“Our production business in China is just getting started, marked by a global partnership with leading Chinese streamer, iQIYI, for the new original IP Jonny Jetboy from the creator of Paw Patrol and Bob the Builder. The partnership spans production supervision on the new series, as well as distribution and licensing outside of China.
“We’ve also recently partnered with Jay Ward Productions across distribution, production and licensing for their entire portfolio including such legendary properties as Rocky & Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Dudley Do-Right, Super Chicken and more,” Ellenbogen said.
“As we promised, we’re layering on more and more premium content deals and launching and re-launching IP to drive consumer products upside and grow our long-term earnings base. We’re just getting started, so stay tuned.”
For more on WildBrain’s Q2 2022 financial results, please click here.
