Gabelli Radio · 2026-06-18 · 32 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
48 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Lionsgate Studios, now a pure-play independent content company following its separation from Starz, is positioned at a strategic inflection point with improved visibility into multi-year EBITDA growth. Vice Chairman Michael Burns and EVP IR Nilay Shah discuss how the company has evolved from its original thesis of acquiring library content at reasonable multiples - building a $20 billion+ content portfolio generating over $1 billion in annual library revenue at 50%+ margins. The conversation centers on three growth drivers: franchises like John Wick, Hunger Games, and newly successful projects like the Michael Jackson film (tracking toward $1 billion box office); scripted television renewals and library content coming back in-license at significantly higher terms; and an emerging AI strategy yielding tens of millions in cost savings and new revenue streams like the MovieSphere AVOD channel. The company trades at 6x leverage with a path to delever to 3.5-4x through organic cash generation. Burns addresses strategic optionality around M&A, noting that while standalone viability is clear, potential partners range from strategic players with cost and revenue synergies to sovereign wealth funds and AI companies. This episode is essential for media investors, studio analysts, and operators evaluating content-backed growth stories and the sustainability of theatrical tent poles versus streaming content cycles.
Lionsgate built a 20,000+ title library generating over $1 billion in annual revenue at 50%+ margins by acquiring content when few investors valued libraries. The strategy creates high-margin recurring revenue and fills scheduling gaps; for example, the MovieSphere AVOD channel uses AI to optimize library content scheduling, targeting 1.5 million subscribers at $5.99/month with minimal P&A costs.
Lionsgate currently trades at 6x leverage with a target of 3.5-4x, deleveraging through organic free cash flow from the library, television renewals, and film tent poles. Fiscal 2027 is framed as a multi-year EBITDA growth inflection driven by franchise sequels (Hunger Games, Saw, American Psycho reboots), television show renewals (11 of 12 scripted shows renewed), and library re-licensing at higher terms.
Lionsgate hired an AI czar (Kathleen Grayson) to optimize library scheduling, reduce budgeting and VFX costs (saving tens of millions annually), and create new distribution channels like MovieSphere. The company uses a "sandbox" approach to allow creators to work with its IP when there's monetization upside, and notes that owning underlying IP provides inherent protection as AI tools evolve.
Content licenses like Twilight are coming back to Lionsgate at 3-5x the original license fees because Apple, Amazon, and Netflix are bidding aggressively for recognizable world-renowned content brands. The combination of increased demand and shorter license terms (one-third the duration) drives the revenue spike.
Three Arts, 76%-owned by Lionsgate, is a selective talent management firm that packages television shows and benefits from studio economics when partnering with Lionsgate, creating better deal terms for both clients and the company. The business operates on 10% commission and focuses on quality over quantity, with recent credits including Backrooms.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
There are genuine operational nuggets buried in what is largely an investor pitch - the film accounting write-down mechanic, the participation buyout strategy, and the Moviesphere model are real insights - but the episode is heavily padded with promotional narrative, film plugs, and generic growth-story language that dilutes density significantly.
When we release a movie, you, uh, we have to write it down to zero in 10 years. So our book value of that, that product is zero... anything that came out 10 years ago, uh, there's no quote value on our, on our book. So, um, yeah, the margin is pretty good.
Brian Goldsmith, who is our chief operating officer, is an animal. He spends a lot of time buying out participations because if the math works for us and it's great to. If a participant wants to get money early, we're all ears
The episode is primarily a polished investor-relations pitch recycling standard content-business talking points; there are occasional flashes of candid framing (the private credit library comment, the accounting absurdity observation) but no genuinely contrarian or first-principles argument is developed.
we like buying libraries from institutions that really didn't know what they bought in the first place
we have a world today which is a tale of two cities. You have half this country that can't write a $500 check in a medical emergency. So Netflix has gotten expensive
Michael Burns is a genuine 26-year practitioner who co-built Lionsgate from a $33M raise, has real deal-making history (Summit, E1, Three Arts), and speaks with operator authority; however, the investor-conference format constrains him to a promotional pitch rather than deep practitioner candor.
John and I came over to Lionsgate in uh, 2000, so 26 years ago. So what we tried to do is not be the smart guys. And our thesis was pretty simple
We've invested $20 billion plus in content that we're going to be mining in perpetuity.
The episode includes real numbers - share count, market cap, net debt, box office figures, subscriber targets, margin ranges, and leverage ratios - which is more grounded than a typical podcast; but many claims (AI saving 'tens and tens of millions,' M&A synergies, franchise upside) are asserted without supporting data.
about 290 million shares trading close to $14 when I just checked, so about a 4 billion equity market cap, 1.6 billion of net debt for about a 6 billion total enterprise value
it'll do. I think it'll do. A billion dollars of worldwide box office. It's over $800 million now
The moderators ask a few pointed questions (scale to compete, leverage path, the accounting follow-up) but the format is a conference investor presentation with no real pushback on bullish claims, no stress-testing of projections, and several questions that simply hand Burns a platform to pitch upcoming films.
Let's address the elephant in the room, if I may. Obviously, a lot of little deals. One, big, good old fashioned takeover deal. Um, some facets to that. One, you have the scale to compete as a buyer.
Could you just explain the accounting behind it? When you relay license an existing portfolio, the incremental margin
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Lionsgate Studios Corp (LION) Michael Burns, Vice Chairman & Nilay Shah, EVP IR, present at the Gabelli 18th Annual Sports & Media Symposium held on June 4th, 2026. Moderated by Christopher Marangi, President & Co-CIO, and Hanna Howard, Portfolio Manager and Research Analyst, at Gabelli. To learn more about Gabelli Funds' fundamental, research-driven approach to investing, visit or email invest@gabelli.com.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Host: Lionsgate Studios, which is a leading standalone pure play content company. It has a motion picture group with iconic franchises including the Hunger Games, John Wick and Saw, and a TV studio producing for every major platform a library of more than 200, sorry, 20,000 titles, generating over a billion in annual revenue, as well as a talent management and production powerhouse. The company completed its full separation from Starz just before this event last year, collapsing its dual share structure into a single class of stock and establishing itself as an agnostic talent first content supplier. The company has about 290 million shares trading close to $14 when I just checked, so about a 4 billion equity market cap, 1.6 billion of net debt for about a 6 billion total enterprise value. We have the company's Vice chairman, Michael Burns here, as well as head of investor relations, Nilei Shah. Thank you so much for making the trip from LA to join us. So, getting started, high, um, level, kicking things off. For those newer to the story, can you touch on how Lionsgate Studios has evolved over the last decade into the standalone company that it is today?
Michael Burns: Sure. Uh, thanks for having me. M. I have two questions. One, press here or no press? No, no, I'm just wondering whether there is press here.
Nilay Shah: Yes.
Michael Burns: Okay. And then webcast.
Nilay Shah: It is being webcam.
Michael Burns: Okay, great. Now I have it. Now I have the uh, rules. Great, um, thank you. It's gonna be a lot less colorful now. Uh, not really. Uh, John and I came over to Lionsgate in uh, 2000, so 26 years ago. So what we tried to do is not be the smart guys. And our thesis was pretty simple. You think about our original investors. We did a very small $33 million convertible preferred. John and I put money into it. We got our friend Gordy Crawford at um, ah, Cap Research, who's still on our board. He was at Cap Research at the time. Uh, they invested, Fidelity invested, my recently fired friend Jamie Dimon invested. Uh, that's the best thing, by the way, to ever happen to him. Uh, but um, uh, our thesis was pretty simple, which is control as much content, buy as much library product as possible. When no one was really paying attention to library. We didn't want to bet on a particular platform or technology. We just knew as they came to us that we'd have a chance to ring the cash register with our content. So we sort of bought everything that was out there at fairly, ah, reasonable multiples. And so now the core asset that we have is the library, which is over a billion won of revenue, very high margin business, which is more than 50% and, and uh, to create an opportunity for us that we would hit a lot of singles and doubles in the film and television business. But every once in a while we'd get a franchise. And so we built up, uh, the library, we built up the feature film business and we've done reasonably well. And so it's sort of us and the majors. So the, uh, the question that you all are probably asking, which is why do I buy the stock now? Uh, I've been doing this a long time, so I'm just going to try to jump into it. Uh, and the answer is timing. And we have better visibility that we've ever had in, uh, our recent history. Uh, we have the combination of new IP and franchises coming down, uh, the pipe. We also have our. A, uh, great number of renewals for our scripted television shows. A lot of hits that you guys probably watch. I hope you do. By the way, if you haven't seen the Studio, which is our show on Apple, it's worth seeing. It's. Sadly there's. It's funny as hell and absurd. And you realize just how odd the business is that the movie and television business, the studio business is. But it's worth watching. Um, we have had, uh, great success recently with Michael, uh, Jackson movie. I think, taking a term. I'm old, so I've been around since the Michael Milken days of the highly confident letter. I'll tell you that I'm highly confident there will be another Michael movie. Uh, there will be two more housemaids based upon the additional books uh, we have. I think again, you never want to bet on your favorite child, but Jim Packer was here two years ago and I think he said publicly that Michael was going to be the biggest movie in recent Lionsgate history. And he was right. And, uh, it'll do. I think it'll do. A billion dollars of worldwide box office. It's over $800 million now. So the visibility in our business is better than I've seen it for a very, very long time. And what you guys are looking for is, um, comfort that you have the earnings power and the cash flow power, uh, over the foreseeable future. So I think right now we're in an interesting play. We're a growth story. At the same time, we're a value, uh, proposition. We cleaned up our capital structure and again, I'm sort of fast forwarding. We had two classes of stock. I hated it. Uh, most investors hated it. So, uh, we've got one, uh, class of stock now. We're Trading, I don't know, 3 million shares a day. We've got much more liquidity than we've ever had. So obviously a bunch of mutual funds and, uh, hedge funds and investors are looking for liquidity. Uh, we have that. We have, uh, our debt at a manageable level, coming down. Uh, we have very reliable cash flows. You've got the feature film business, 12 pickups of scripted shows, a lot of reality shows. On top of that, you have the library, you've got the management business, three Rs, we own 75% of. We like that coupled with the television business. And you have the feature film business with a bunch of franchises and new ip, uh, so it feels like we're loaded for bear. All right, we're done.
Nilay Shah: Let's go to lunch.
Michael Burns: There you go.
Nilay Shah: Let's address the elephant in the room, if I may. Obviously, a lot of little deals. One, big, good old fashioned takeover deal. Um, some facets to that. One, you have the scale to compete as a buyer. Two, do you have the scale to compete in a world of dwindling streaming services? And depending in part on the answer to those questions, where does that leave you with a variable valuable?
Michael Burns: It's the right question. Look, do we have scale? We have scale. So we have market share in both television and feature film. I wish I could tell you there's a lot of stuff to buy. We picked off E1, and that would turn out to be a great acquisition, particularly with the rookie franchise. Not a lot to buy, not a lot of libraries to buy. But, uh, uh, are we big enough to stay as a standalone company? Sure. We're making a lot of money, and we should continue to make a lot of money over the next few years. And Delever, um, do I think that, uh, the landscape is, um, interesting for a lot of different things? Yeah. Because everybody has the same issue, which is you want to show growth, and you only have two ways to show growth, which is organically, which is really hard to do, uh, or inorganically, which are doing deals. So I think we're an interesting, um, strategic partner for a variety of places. If you said, well, who would they be? I don't have a crystal ball. And I wouldn't tell you even if we were in the middle of doing a deal. But I will tell you that, um, private equity, a lot of money. Interested in doing certain things. There have been some press about that. Uh, a company that's backed by a private equity company. But do I think that's the right, uh, strategic partner? Maybe. But do I think that somebody that's got strategic uh, synergies, both cost and uh, revenue synergy. Yes. There's a tremendous amount of um, uh, synergies with a few players that are out there. And then you've got some of these um, these wildcards with these uh, sovereigns. Well, I was going to say, well sovereign sovereigns are one thing, they've got a lot of money, but also. And obviously the price of oil helps them. But uh, you look at some of these AI companies with staggering uh, uh, valuations but growth rate, just incredible. So we've got this strategic relationship with Runway we're pretty excited about. And it's funny, years ago I said to, I made a joke with Crystal Ball when we first did our um, a uh, deal with him. I said, uh, you know, maybe someday, you know, we'll buy you. And now he's probably you know, smirking at me saying well, let's take a look at how our valuation turns out.
Host: Yeah, that's a helpful um, overview as we kind of think about the landscape. Um, moving on a little bit to content. And I think we have this slide up here, um, with theatrical releases and you've clearly doubled down on some major franchises. With John Wick, Hunger Games, Twilight. Can you talk a little bit about how you're balancing these tent poles with mid budget content moving forward?
Michael Burns: You know, Adam Fogelson runs our film business with his partner, um, uh, Aaron Westerman. They are very disciplined on um, not only the overhead they have in their film group, but it's the, you have to have the right mix. The film business is art and science. You have to have the right mix of uh, existing franchises that you feel like they're reliable. And you don't have to spend as much money on marketing necessarily. And you've got a built in audience but you have to come up with new IP I. E. House made. So uh, we'll put out, I don't know, call it a dozen wide releases and a lot of other movies that are smaller releases. We've got a great movie coming out this weekend called Power Ballad. If you don't like it, if you go see the movie and don't like the movie, I'll send you your 20 bucks back. Uh, for the people in the room, all of a sudden I'm going to get a thousand. But it's really a fun movie but it's a limited release. But uh, I think it's going out on 1200 screens. Less P and A. But it's a movie that will. I don't put that in the category of the Michael and the Housemaids and Resurrection, you know, Part one and Part two, which by the way I think is. And again, I don't want to go out on a limb, but I will. I think those are going to be giantly successful movies uh, for us. And I made a joke the other day, which Resurrection has a uh, a lot happier ending uh, than Passion, uh, of the Christ, uh, but maybe not for the disciples. But uh, I would say overall we are going to have uh, this sort of art and science with uh, some smaller releases throughout the year. Segment two movies that are really good bread and butter business for us and uh, the wide releases. And then as I said, coupled with the library and the television product. And a uh, television product that is doing very, very well. I like the visibility. Oh, I was going to say also reinventing. I know Nile would think I was remiss if I didn't mention obviously there'll be a new American Psycho, there'll be a new Saw, there's going to be a Blair Witch, uh, and certainly Dirty Dancing. So that is uh, existing IP that you can reboot and hopefully uh, create another uh, leg of uh, upside with the entire franchise.
Host: Mhm. So diving into that a little bit more, I want to touch on the library obviously has been continuing to do well over the last several years. Um, and you've spoken about using AI to mine that Longer Tail catalog for incremental high margin revenue. So that's the first part. And then also I'd like to talk a little bit more broadly about AI the impact on the content creation business and how you're leveraging that as well as any risks you see moving forward.
Michael Burns: We hired this new uh, AI czar, Kathleen Grayson. She's doing great in every one of our businesses. But I'll give you an example of AI, Jim Packer, who was here, as I said a couple years ago, head of worldwide distribution. Uh, Jim has launched some channels. For example, there's a channel called Movie Sphere and it's a very successful channel. It's priced correctly. 599, no commercials. And it's basically AI is helping us making sure think about the airplane that takes off with empty seats. They never get the revenue back. So Jim's got this channel which has a bunch of library products, but it also has really good titles in there that are open for a week or two weeks or three weeks, et cetera. And Bangy fills that void. And that uh, that channel should be a million and a half subscribers. Very High margin business. It's our channel, it's using our product when it's available. And do the math, you know, $5 a month, uh, and uh, million and a half growing subscribers done for the right price point. We have a world today which is a tale of two cities. You have half this country that can't write a $500 check in a medical emergency. So Netflix has gotten expensive and this uh, is part of the reason that the fast channels do so well and AVOD channels do so well because they're free and people will subject themselves to ads and if they get something for free. But on the other side, if it's an inexpensive ad free channel, like for example Moviesphere, uh, that's a good value proposition for them. So we would never be able to do that uh, one without sort of the programming, uh, uh, that AI provides us with because it just, you know, it zip, zip, zip, zip. But also we couldn't do it without the library that we have.
Host: Mhm.
Michael Burns: And I had a meeting the other day. Matt Leonetti and Briana came in my office with Kathleen and they showed me all the stuff we're doing in the world of AI, which is with our, our movie specific shots, previewing the movie, figuring out how to budget those. Again with AI, uh, AI is going to save us tens and tens of millions of dollars a year.
Speaker D: Mhm.
Host: So primarily at this point on the cost side with a little bit of the revenue that you just mentioned, um, I guess how are you thinking about IP protections as these tools become more capable?
Michael Burns: Again, if you own the underlying ip, then you have protection built in, you have Sora that came out and all of a sudden everybody was stealing everything and then that sort of got shut down. We like the idea within a certain, uh, I'll call it Playpen or Sandbox, where people can uh, work with our IP if there's a way for us to monetize it, uh, in those uh, scenarios. So AI is, look, it's like Moore's Law on crack. It is going so fast, uh, that uh, again if you own the existing ip, you get a lot of different ways to monetize it. So I think it's exciting on both
Nilay Shah: if the law works.
Michael Burns: What's that?
Nilay Shah: If the legal protections.
Michael Burns: Yeah, I think they will. But again, actors likenesses with cooperation. Um, I think that there's a participation with them. Uh, again, if everybody can um, monetize it together.
Host: Okay. And then just touching on TV segment performance and expectations moving forward. I've kind of alluded to it but just touching on kind of what you're expecting there and the sustainability of renewal run rates from here.
Michael Burns: Here's what I think. I think that we have a unbelievable television business, but it's a bread and butter business. It's a sort of low on a normalized year. It's a, it's a low double digit margin. However, all those shows eventually come back to us. For example, I know Mad Men recently came back to us and so we relicensed that to hbo. We have a big title coming back to us. One of Netflix's biggest hits, which was uh, for us, which was um, Orange uh, is the New Black that comes back to us. So on the years that you have, you know, your bread and butter business, your normal renewals, Kevin got, Kevin Beggs got 11 of the 12 scripted shows renewed. And that's great and we make money every season. However, when you have something that comes back and you've got 60, 70, 80, 100 episodes and then you're realizing the, them again, uh, that's when the margins spike uh, tremendously in the, in the television space. The, the, the idea that content's coming back to us. We bought companies um, over the years and libraries and one of the big acquisitions we did years ago was Summit. Summit has great library titles and all those Twilights that they licensed out, uh, uh, the first cycle, Twilight 1, 2, 3, I think there were five of them. Uh, they're all coming back to us. So we had original projections, we said oh it's going to come back in France. We license it, I'm making this up for $5 million for a 10 year, 12 year license. Summit did that comes back to us. Now you'd say in the past you'd say well it was $5 million for a cycle. It's probably a discount to that $3 million. Well now it's a multiple of the $5 million and the term is uh, a third of what it was the first time around. And if you want to know why that is, there are three explanations. Apple, Amazon, Netflix. So those uh, people uh, that are licensed or in content are looking for world renowned content brands that they recognize. Uh, and we're in a good place on that.
Nilay Shah: Maybe you could talk a little bit about three arts. Just explain to the broader audience what that is and how it fits or maybe it doesn't fit.
Michael Burns: It's a management company that uh, works very well with particularly our television side of the business. By the way. They own, they have the um, uh, they manage the director for uh, this big Hit that just came out back rooms. So, uh, again, it's a commission business. They're charging X percentage, call it 10% of the of their clients income. And they're out there hustling. It's. They've got less clients, so. Meaning, uh, that agencies have a lot of clients and so you could be an agent and have, you know, 100 people. They're very specific on who they take as clients. They're great in packaging. Television shows, what 3 Arts. Why they like us is by partnering with Lionsgate on a lot of these television shows, uh, like for example, hunting Wives, um, you just get much better economics with the studio definition that comes from Lionsgate. So that deal has been great for us and great for them. We own 76% of it. Uh, we may own 100% of it down the future, we may own less. So just stay tuned on that. But we do like that business.
Nilay Shah: Strikes me in that conversation, by the way. Backrooms came up in an earlier session, um, that you're actually relatively well positioned versus other studios that own big lots and have lots of capital. You're really a capital light business at the top of the stack.
Michael Burns: Yeah, the studio, these giant overheads. If you look at our television and our feature film business, it's a fraction of what everybody else says. Uh, we don't see the point in owning all that. Uh, and you become a captive. We have some stages because we want to make sure we have them. We've got a great deal in New Jersey. We've got some stages that were in Yonkers. Um, and so as long as the subsidies are there, we're going to shoot a lot of product there. We're doing some stuff overseas as well
Nilay Shah: right now that I guess brings up capital. You mentioned Michael Milken earlier. You're at a little over six times leveraged today. You've got a path organically to, I think your target is four to four and a quarter or something like that. Um, maybe we could just talk a little bit about maybe it's too early, but what next after that?
Michael Burns: Well, I think you're going to see the trajectory going down. When you spend a ton of money on content and P and A and et cetera and that's going to go, uh, up. But we're certainly much more comfortable getting to a level of, uh, call it three and a half times. Uh, we don't want to be over levered. That's a death spiral for, uh, anybody in our business. And so we like the trajectory of that. We've invested $20 billion plus in content that we're going to be mining in perpetuity.
Nilay Shah: Anything else?
Host: I guess we touched on it a bit at the beginning, um, in terms of the stock price moving up significantly more recently, um, business is seemingly at an inflection with the most recent fiscal year being more of a transition year. Looking ahead, um, to the next fiscal year. Slates loaded, leverage coming down. I guess anything to highlight for investors or catalysts that we should watch out for before we kind of move to audience.
Michael Burns: Let's make Neelay sing for supper. Who do you want to highlight? Neelay?
Speaker E: Yeah. I mean, look, I think that the biggest thing that I took away as we were getting ready for the call and just thinking about how we were going to message, you know, the future is really that fiscal 27, right. Because we started our fiscal year on April 1, um, is not just about Michael and it's not going to be about any one film. We are sitting here today talking about a multi year growth story, right? And I think the studio business, the Achilles heel has always been the product cycle, right? Is it a bond year? Is it not a bond year? Is it a Spider man year for Sony? Is it not a Spider man year? And I think given the visibility we have, we really think that this is a multi year EBITDA growth story. And I think that that combined with the free cash flow story and the deleveraging story really makes this not just about the product cycle. It's about the library, it's about the sustainability of the tent poles, it's about the IP and franchise that we talked about. And so we really feel confident that we've turned the corner. And this is kind of the inflection point story that we're talking about. And we obviously, you know, Michael referred to strategic optionality as well. And so we really feel like we're, we're probably better positioned than since I've ever been at the company since 2021, but I think you could even look back further and say, wow, they've really laid the groundwork for all parts of the business really accelerating. So we feel really good about the business.
Michael Burns: The takeaway is the separation really worked. Took us a long time and our many of our shareholders, the long term shareholders were very patient. But boy, oh boy, that was painful. To collapse the A and B shares the same time you're separating Starz and Lions, getting into two separate public companies. Uh, Starz has had a good run. Uh, and uh, I'm involved in Stars, I'm on the board there actually Chair and non executive chair. But Jeff Hersh and his team have done a great job there. The show Fightland, by the way, from 50, uh, cent is going to, is going to come out and they're um. That's a very exciting, uh, show for them. So I feel like there's no doubt that the separation worked. All you got to do is do the math. What you've got, you've got X shares of stars, if you were a Lionsgate shareholder and you've got a share of Lion. Uh, so we're pretty excited that uh, what our thesis was by separating the businesses was the right move.
Nilay Shah: So it was worth the wait. Some left in the tank. What's the money bank guarantee movie again?
Michael Burns: Oh, I think Resurrection is going to be a giant power ballad. Oh yeah. Power ballad. Power ballad. You can watch. I think it's like 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's a really, it's a really fun M movie with, uh, one of the Jonas Brothers. Um, which Jonas brothers?
Speaker E: Nick Jonas and Paul Rudd.
Michael Burns: And uh, not that I could name the other ones, but, uh, Nick Jonas and also, uh, Paul Rudd. It's about the stealing of a hit show. It's very, very good. I'd be shocked if you didn't like it. But it's not a, it's not a huge release for us, but it's, again, it's a, it's a good business for us. We've got another Jason Statham movie coming out later on which are, yeah, Mutiny, Mutiny, which are moneymakers for us because his audience always shows up.
Nilay Shah: There are worse things to do than, uh, follow studios and soccer teams. So appreciate you being here.
Michael Burns: Yeah, you're in the fun business. It's a lot more fun than following health care.
Nilay Shah: Definitely agree with that.
Michael Burns: If you guys have any questions, you've got me for sure. Five more minutes, please. Anybody? Nilay is really smart on certain topics maybe. Exactly.
Nilay Shah: We've got stars coming up later, so save them.
Michael Burns: Oh yeah, Jeff will be here today, which, uh, I think it's worth seeing. He's um, as I said, he's doing a really great, uh, job and that's. He's got a very good, um, uh, niche audience, uh, for his, which are underserved women, uh, African, uh, Americans. And it's a pretty exciting, um, story, uh, for him as well, and real cash flow. And then I think we're going to pay attention to our cash flow going forward and pay attention to the trajectory of, um, our earnings.
Nilay Shah: Actually, we do have a question.
Michael Burns: Here we go. Kind sir, thanks so much.
Speaker D: Has the cracks in the private credit
Michael Burns: world changed your perception of your ability
Speaker D: to buy, uh, content in one to two years from now?
Michael Burns: Buy content? You mean libraries?
Speaker D: Yeah, there's been a lot of.
Michael Burns: It feels like that, uh, the rise
Speaker D: of the private credit world gave rise to kind of irrational bidding on certain assets, uh, including in the content world.
Speaker E: Music libraries. I think he's maybe talking about.
Michael Burns: Yeah, I think that, um, we're opportunistic on the timing of when we buy libraries and who we buy them from, but we've had great success, um, that I'm not going to, you know, disparage them, but we like buying libraries from institutions that really didn't know what they bought in the first place, so. And yes, it gets frothy and people spend a lot of money and then they ultimately say, wait a second, this really isn't a core asset for us, but it is a core asset for us. So we're hoping that some of that stuff shakes loose. There's just not a lot of it out there. You know, with 20 some thousand titles, uh, in the library, uh, we certainly have, uh, we certainly have a core asset that has scale. Yeah.
Speaker E: I think the music library business is just, it's just a lot more fragmented. Right. And it's on an artist by artist basis in a lot of cases in terms of what deals are happening. And as Michael alluded to the media business, it's the opposite of fragmented. And so that's why our asset is so scarce. And eone was kind of this really, uh, unique opportunity. There just aren't that many out there.
Michael Burns: Here's a question for the audience. Talk about throwback to libraries and way these work together. Who was the number one artist on Spotify streaming last week? Michael Jackson. So the way that these feed off each other is really terrific. So that movie, not only great for us and everybody involved with it, but certainly, uh, the Michael Jackson Estate and Catalog
Nilay Shah: bank.
Michael Burns: Can I shell it out?
Speaker E: Yeah, go ahead.
Michael Burns: Could you just explain the accounting behind it? When you relay license an existing portfolio, the incremental margin, you know, I'm glad, I'm glad you asked that question because here's how ridiculous the accounting is in the, in the film and television business. When we release a movie, you, uh, we have to write it down to zero in 10 years. So our book value of that, that product is zero. So. And most of it is in the first six or seven years actually before that. So. But anything that came out 10 years ago, uh, there's no quote value on our, on our book. So, um, yeah, the margin is pretty good.
Speaker E: I mean, there's still participations that you have to pay, but generally speaking, yeah,
Michael Burns: when I mean margin is pretty good, I mean, uh, you know, typically certainly more than 50%, but you think about it, you've got residuals called that 7, 8%. And then on top of that, some participations. We're also very active. Brian Goldsmith, who is our chief operating officer, is an animal. He spends a lot of time buying out participations because if the math works for us and it's great to. If a participant wants to get money early, we're all ears, uh, with a checkbook, uh, to buy out those participations going forward. Good for them, good for us.
Nilay Shah: All right, we're going to go to lunch on an accounting question. You must see a lot of movie pitches. You've gotten that down. You're pretty good.
Michael Burns: Yeah, I've seen a lot of movie pitches. I'll tell you one final joke, which is hilarious because, uh, at least it was to me. My 13 year old son said, dad, how long have you been vice chairman of Lionsgate? And I said, 26 years. He goes, why can't you get promoted? Thank you all.
Nilay Shah: All right, thank you everybody.
Speaker E: Thanks everyone.
Speaker D: Christopher Marangi is President Co CIO. Sergey Luzhevsky, Hannah Howard, Gustavo Pifano and Alec Bakanfuso are portfolio managers. Justin McAuliffe and Jenny Moo are, uh, research analysts at Gabelli. The above webcast is an excerpt From Gabelli Fund's 18th annual Media and Entertainment Symposium. GAMCO is providing these links as a matter of general information. We do not intend for these links to be a complete description of any security or company, nor is it a research report with respect to any of the companies mentioned herein. As of March 31, 2026, affiliates of GAMCO Investors, Inc. Beneficially own, on behalf of their investment advisory clients or otherwise, approximately 31.2% of Atlanta Braves Class A and 5.4% of Class C. 11.3% of Sinclair 5.8% of E.W. scripps, 5.2% of Madison Square Garden Sports 4.7% of Sphere Entertainment 3.3% of Manchester United 2.9% of Madison Square Garden Entertainment 2.6% of Gray Television Class A and less than 1% of Common 2.2% of Ryman Hospitality 2.0% of Liberty Global Class A, 1.1% Liberty Global Class C, 1.4% of Versant Media and less than 1% of all other companies mentioned, the analyst's views are subject to change at any time based on market and other conditions. The information in this posting represents the opinions of the analyst and is not intended to be a forecast of future events, a guarantee of future results, or investment advice. Views expressed are those of the analyst and may differ from those of other GAMCO officers, analysts, other employees, or of the firm as a whole. Because the investment personnel at GAMCO and our affiliates make individual investment decisions with respect to the client accounts that they manage, these accounts may have transactions inconsistent with the information contained in this posting. Certain GAMCO personnel may know the substance of the posting prior to its posting. This webcast is not an offer to sell any security, nor is it a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Stocks are subject to market economic and business risks that cause their prices to fluctuate. When you sell shares, they may be worth less than what you paid for them. For more information of prospectus or summary prospectus, visit our website at www.gabelli.com or call 800-GABELLI.