HALIFAX — Kids and family entertainment company WildBrain saw year-over-year growth in overall revenue and net income for the three months ended December 31, 2020, and sequential quarterly growth in its WildBrain Spark subsidiary’s revenues, the company announced Tuesday evening.
WildBrain’s revenue increased 17% to $142.3 million in Q2 2021 compared to $122.1 million in Q2 2020. The company’s revenue for the first half of fiscal 2021 grew slightly to $237.7 million compared to $234.4 million for the first six months of fiscal 2020.
Net income grew to $11.3 million in the second quarter of 2021, a year-over-year improvement over a net loss of $2.3 million in Q2 2020. WildBrain’s first-half 2021 net income was $8 million, a substantial increase from a net loss of $18.3 million in the first half of 2020.
The company’s WildBrain Spark AVOD network business reported revenue of $15.5 million in the second quarter of 2021, which is a 74% increase from the $8.9 million reported in the first quarter of 2021, marking another quarter of sequential improvement for the subsidiary. However, this represents a year-over-year decrease from the $24.2 million in revenue WildBrain Spark enjoyed in Q2 2020. The subsidiary’s first-half 2021 revenue was $24.4 million, compared to $46.3 million in the first half of 2020.
WildBrain Spark reported its audience engagement increased to 59.7 billion minutes of videos watched on its AVOD network in the second quarter of 2021, up 15% from Q2 2020. In the first half of 2021, viewing time grew 14% to 123.9 billion minutes compared to the first half of 2020.
As for its more traditional business, the company’s Canadian Television Broadcasting revenue (earned through subscriber fees and advertising on Family Channel, Family Jr, Télémagino, and Family CHRGD), Q2 revenue came in at $11.8 million, down 5% compared to Q2 2020. This reflects “subscriber erosion in line with the broader linear TV market,” reads the management discussion and analysis. “Subscriber revenue as a percentage of total revenue was 85%, or $10.1 million (Q2 2020 – 87%, or $10.7 million), while advertising, promotion, digital and other revenues were 15%, or $1.7 million (Q2 2020 – 13%, or $1.6 million).”
The company, however, is concentrating on its growth potential in new markets and with new partners.
“We recently announced yet another major deal that capitalizes on our capabilities to manage, monetize and grow brands across content and licensing. In partnership with Sega, we’re producing a new original series for Netflix’s global audience based on the highly popular Sonic the Hedgehog gaming franchise,” said company CEO Eric Ellenbogen. “Our new content is expected to extend the fan base for the Sonic franchise and builds on the success that our agency, WildBrain CPLG, is already having with consumer products licensing for Sega across continental Europe. These multi-year, exclusive agreements with two of the world’s leading entertainment companies add another premium project to our creative pipeline and gives us excellent visibility into even more contracted, high-quality earning streams for years to come.”
“We’re also realizing positive momentum across every part of our business, evidenced by our Q2 financial results, led by strength in our content and distribution segment. We’re further encouraged by quarter-over-quarter sequential improvement at WildBrain Spark as advertising revenues continued to rebound from the pressures of Covid-19 and YouTube policy changes. WildBrain Spark is also successfully building new revenue streams including direct ad sales, paid media and digital production fees, with these nascent revenues growing by 365% in the current quarter. Overall, we’re delivering meaningful progress on our plans to provide 360-degree support to grow our own and partners’ brands by leveraging the strength WildBrain has in development, production, distribution, licensing and audience delivery,” he added.
WildBrain’s content production and distribution revenue increased 101% to $68.5 million in Q2 2021, compared to $34.1 million Q2 2020. The company says higher revenue was driven by a growing roster of premium projects in production, including an expanding slate of new Peanuts content as well as the licensing of the Peanuts library of classic specials to Apple TV+. Content production and distribution revenue for the first half of 2021 increased 52% to $104.9 million from $69.2 million in the first half of 2020.
The company’s adjusted EBITDA increased 14% to $29.1 million in Q2 2021, compared to $25.6 million in Q2 2020, mainly driven by the Peanuts library licensing deal, continued strength in the content production and distribution business and other income of $4.4 million from a litigation settlement, WildBrain said. For the first half of 2021, adjusted EBITDA increased 3% to $46.7 million from $45.2 million in the first half of 2020.
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