Starz Entertainment Corp (STRZ) 2025 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Starz Business Update call. (Operator Instructions)

As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now, I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Nilay Shah, Head of Investor Relations, please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for Starz Entertainment's fiscal 2025 fourth quarter business update call. We'll begin with opening remarks from our President and CEO, Jeffrey Hirsch, followed by remarks from our CFO, Scott Macdonald. Also joining us on the call today is Alison Hoffman, President of Starz Networks. After our opening remarks, we'll open the call for questions.

The matters discussed on the call include forward-looking statements, including those regarding the performance of future fiscal years. Such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. This includes the risk factors set forth in the registration statement on Form S4 for Starz Entertainment Corp. Starz undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect any future events or circumstances.

The matters discussed today will also include non-GAAP measures. The reconciliation for these and additional required information is available on the 8-K we filed this afternoon, which is available on the Starz Investor Relations website at investors.starz.com. Before I hand the call over to Jeff, I want to briefly outline our SEC reporting cadence for the remainder of the calendar year.

As you know, our fiscal year 2025 ended March 30, 2025. As a result of the complexity of the accounting for the separation and the fact that we are viewed by the SEC as a first-time filer, we will not be required to file our 10-K for fiscal 2025 until late June. We expect to file our 10-Q for the June quarter in August. While we are not in a position to publish a full earnings release and presentation given that certain of our financial information is included in the 10-K for Lionsgate, we are disclosing today certain key metrics that drove our business in the March quarter.

Second, starting with our June quarter, Starz is going to shift its fiscal year schedule to align with a calendar year timeline. Thus, Our June quarter results will function as our second quarter of 2025, and we will file a transitional 10-K for calendar 2025 in the first quarter of 2026.

Finally, we are still finalizing our audit for fiscal 2025, including the balance sheet, cash flow statement, and below the line income statement items. Thus, we will not be disclosing cash flow metrics today. Such metrics will be included with our audited financials that will be filed in late June. I'll now turn the call over to Jeff.

Thank you, Nilay. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our first conference call as a standalone public company. The separation had some twists and turns, and we appreciate all of the investors and analysts that remain patient during the process. Before getting into the highlights from the quarter, I want to briefly discuss why we believe Starz is a highly investable business. Based on the fundamentals of the business, we are uniquely situated with a strong balance sheet that looks a lot different than our peers. We believe we should be trading significantly higher than the current mid 4 times adjusted OIBDA multiple.

The Starz business is generating approximately $1.4 billion in revenue is data driven, primarily digital, subscription-based with no linear advertising exposure, and delivered me approximately $200 million of adjusted OIBDA each year underpinned by owned and scalable tech. And looking forward, the business is poised to expand margins from 15% to 20%, convert 70% of adjusted OIBDA into unlevered free cash flow with a goal to delever to around 2.5 times as quickly as possible.

With 20 million subscribers in the US and Canada, focused on two very valuable core demos of women and underrepresented audiences and a TAM of about 80 million, we see an opportunity to grow our current $1.4 billion in revenue, of which 70% is currently digital. We've made the transition from linear to digital faster than any other linear network while remaining profitable. Throughout this transformation, our revenue has proven to be very durable as we've replaced linear revenue with digital revenue. Currently, we sit at approximately 15% profit margin with about $200 million of adjusted OIBDA.

The business should convert approximately 70% of this profit to unleveraged free cash flow annually. As we unwind some of the structural costs from separation and assume responsibility for managing our own cash flow, we expect to be at the 70% conversion level in calendar '26. As I've previously stated, we see a clear path to getting to a 20% margin business by the end of calendar '28, driven by changes that we can control. Green lighting our own IP will restore ownership economics to the business, giving us greater cost control and unlocking new revenue streams.

Turning to our performance in the quarter, we are pleased to report strong operating and financial results. We had a strong quarter of OTT subscriber growth, increasing our total subscriber base in the US by almost 2%. The strong sub-growth in the quarter was driven by the premiere of raising can in Season 4. Customer acquisition for the premiere week was 50% and 30% higher than Seasons 2 and 3 respectively.

North American revenue was down both year over year and sequentially, reflecting the impact of a strike infected year that generated only 3 tempo series. The limited content resulted in pressure on subscribers over the past few quarters, which ultimately impacted revenue. Despite a very difficult year marked by strikes and a limited slate, we are still able to manage through the pressures of the business to deliver $92 million of adjusted OIBDA in the quarter, achieving our goal of $200 million for the year. With the strike behind us in one of our strongest slates, we are confident that we will continue to drive OTT subscriber growth in calendar '25, and we expect to return to positive revenue growth sequentially in quarters three and four of this year, paving the way to positive year over year revenue growth in calendar '26.

As we move into the year, our slate of 5 big tempos, including Outlander prequel, Blood of My Blood, the return of Spartacus after 12 years, a strong lineup of proven hits like BMF and our power spinoffs coupled with a strong lineup of output titles from Lionsgate and Universal gives us great confidence in our subscriber and revenue trajectory. Before I turn it over to Scott, I want to highlight one key priority for Starz.

With no incremental overhead cost to the business, we will commence on rebuilding our library and reclaim ownership economics, enhance cost efficiency, and create new revenue streams. We've officially opened writers' rooms for several series that Starz will own the IP. I expect this will be a critical and accretive change to our business, with the goal of almost half the calendar '27 slate being owned and controlled by Starz. Now, Scott will take you through the key metrics and financial results.

Thanks Jeff, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll briefly discuss the March quarterly metrics and financial information that we disclosed in our filing this afternoon for our Starz Network's business segment. Starz Networks includes our operations in the United States and Canada. I will also provide an update on our balance sheet. As a reminder, the results reflected in our international business segment reflect the financial results of Lionsgate Play and minor amounts related to the final closeout of our international operations that were previously exited.

Starz Networks ended the quarter with 12.3 million US OTT subscribers, which represented sequential growth of 530,000. We ended the quarter with 18 million total US subscribers, representing a quarter-over-quarter increase of 320,000. US subscriber growth was driven by Raising Kanan Season 4, which debuted late in Q4. Including Canada, we ended the quarter with 19.6 million total North American subscribers, reflecting a sequential decrease of 330,000 subscribers. This decrease was primarily due to a carriage dispute in Canada that led to the removal of a group of channels, including the Starz linear branded channel from a distributor's programming packages. The dispute remains unresolved, and it's uncertain whether the Starz channel will be reinstated. However, the affected linear Canadian subscribers represent extremely low ARPU, resulting in an immaterial impact on both revenue and adjusted OIBDA.

Starz Network's quarterly revenue is $326.2 million and adjusted OIBDA was $92 million. Revenue was down 6.8% year over year due to lower total subscribers. The year-over-year subscriber decline was due to fewer Temple original series in fiscal year '25 and continued pressure on linear subscribers. The drag from lower subscribers in prior quarters is expected to keep revenue growth negative on a year-over-year basis for calendar 25. However, on a sequential basis, we expect revenue for the June quarter to be generally in line with the March quarter followed by growth in Q3 and Q4.

Adjusted to OIBDA of $92 million was up $42.6 million year over year due to lower programming amortization and lower advertising and marketing expenses. During Q4, we recorded a restructuring charge of $177.4 million. This charge was primarily related to the reassessment of our content portfolio to better aligned Starz to operate as a stand-alone company. Programming amortization was favorably impacted by this restructuring charge and the timing of our original series premieres. Advertising and marketing expenses were also favorably impacted by the timing of our original series premieres. Additionally, we had lower spend on OTT direct response marketing due to operational efficiencies. As Jeff noted in his remarks, we continued to forecast that Starz will achieve approximately $200 million of adjusted OIBDA for calendar year '25.

Moving on to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $615.5 million of total net debt, consisting of $715 million of senior unsecured notes, $17.8 million of cash, and an $81.7 million intercompany receivable from Lionsgate, which was settled at separation. On a trailing 12-month basis, our total leverage was 3.1 times. At separation on May 6, our total net debt was $559.1 million, consisting of $300 million of our new term Loan A, $325.1 million of the senior unsecured notes that remained with Starz, and $66 million of cash. Additionally at separation, we had no borrowings outstanding under our new $150 million revolving credit facility. Please note that our total net debt at separation was an intra-quarter figure, and we expect fluctuations in our net leverage throughout the remainder of the year. We expect to exit this year at a similar leverage level as the March 31 period, or 3.1 times, and we will begin to leveraging from that level during calendar '26. Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Nilay for Q&A.

Thanks, Scott. Operator, could we open up the call for Q&A?

Rich Greenfield, Light Shed Partners.

Hi, thanks for taking the question. I mean, I know that you're still early in this process of spinning off and separating from Lionsgate, but I guess, Jeff, just the obvious question is, I remember back to when you were a separate public company, before Lionsgate bought you, then controlled by or, division of Lionsgate and now separate again. What is being on your own? Like, how should we think of, let's call this Starz 3.0. What's different about 3.0? Like, what will you be able to do as a standalone public company that you weren't able to do within Lionsgate? Like how will the next couple of years be different than what we've seen over the last several years?

Thanks for the question, Rich. Thanks for coming today. Look, I think if you compare Starz 1.0 to where we are today, 3.0, I don't even think you can make the comparison at that point. When I started in 2015, we're 100% linear, we're a wholesale business, we had no consumer data, didn't control any customers. Today, we're 70% of our revenue is digital, 80% of all of our customers are a la carte or RevShare, which means one, we're making money for our partners; two, customers are picking it for the content, so we know the content is working. And so, it's a fundamentally different business than it was when we were pre-Lionsgate back in 2015 and 2016.

I think it's part of Lionsgate; we were obviously a network and a studio together. There were a lot of decisions that were made for the overall health of the business. And when you had a studio business that was trading at 11 or 12 times and a network business trading at 3 times, a lot of the decisions were made were to put $1 profit on the bigger multiple business, which was the right decision to make at the time. And so, that put a lot of pressure on the cost structure of our business. And so, that's one thing as a separate company. We'll start to unwind that pressure of cost on the content side and really start to stand up our IP factory again and start to build our own library and take real control of the cost side of the business.

I also think being owned by a studio, there was a lot of decisions in terms of resources around, buying a library and stuff that was really focused on the studio business. And so, as we separate out and become a stand-alone one, we'll be able to solely focus on our business. I think Lionsgate will be able to do the same. I think that'll be healthy and so it'll be a very simple business that we'll be able to focus on an execution. We'll be able to get back up to 20% margin by putting ownership back on the network, and I think we all have a very strong balance sheet with leverage in a really good place that we can actually go out and look to kind of scale our business with the focus on women and underrepresented audiences.

Is there different forms of content you imagine creating that wasn't something that Lionsgate wanted to do? Like, will we see a different variety or diversification of content?

I think we're going to stick to what stick to our two core demos. We think they're very valuable. We think it's a very complimentary. If you remember back in the linear days, we were always a complimentary service. We think we followed the customer from the linear side to the digital side and so we've kept that same model on the digital side as a complimentary service that is very focused on two very valuable demos that makes us a very good bundling partner to all. And so, I think you'll see us continue to lean into that and scale that and just stay focused.

David Joyce, Seaport.

Thank you. I have a couple of questions. How much do you think the US over the top growth came from new bundling strategies with third parties? And I was just wondering why the revenue came in lighter than expected. How much of that was driven by the Canadian dispute or is there some other factor in that? Thank you.

Hey, so I think the majority of the subscriber growth that we saw in the quarter came in from the premiere of Raising Kanan that came on the last three weeks of the quarter. We did have great success with a Max Starz bundle on Amazon and a BET Starz bundle on Amazon, but the strength of subscribers in the quarter was really driving -- driven by Raising Kanan that came in late in the quarter.

In terms of revenue for the quarter, you really had the effect of the carrier effect of a strike affected year from last year where we had a tough sub year that really kind of built on itself. We had -- the December quarter had a lot of holiday roll off in the first part of this quarter in the first month, we had then the premiere of Kanan late in the quarter, so you didn't get a full quarter revenue from that premiere. So when you put all those together, you have a little bit of pressure on revenue. But again, as as we talked about, we think we'll we'll see revenue growth in sequentially in quarters three and four in a strong revenue year in '26.

Thanks. And if I could, one more question. What was the mix of consumer, subscriber engagement on your originals versus library content? And if it's possible, how we can think about the library content, engagement from your Lionsgate versus third parties like Sony, Universal, and so forth. Thanks.

Yeah, so we -- the portfolio that we have is a mix of bigger originals that are really surrounded by the Lionsgate Pay-One and the Universal Pay 2 and then library from everybody else. I think what you see in terms of just overall the business kind of in terms of first title streams, which is a proxy for acquisition, about 60% of that comes from the originals, maybe about 55% from the originals and the balance comes from the big titles and movies. So movies are very important. We're very lucky to have have extended the Lionsgate Pay-One out an extra year on separation, so we have those big movies for a long period of time.

Flight Risk did very well for us this past weekend. We're excited about that. We're excited about Ballerina coming to the service. We saw a great success with John Wick when it came on, so we're excited there. And so, the better those movies do for us, the better it is for the service. So it's a combination of all of that kind of portfolio of content working well together, but we think we have a really good mix between Lionsgate, Universal, and our originals, and then we have Sony and Disney in the Pay 2 and 3 from the old Pay-One deal. So we think we've got a great mix of movies coupled with our bigger originals to continue to show great strength in OTT growth this year.

Brent Penter, Raymond James.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. First one for me, can you talk a little bit about the cadence of the shift to owned IP? I saw you made some announcements of a few shows in development. So over what time frame should that that shift happen for those 8 to 10 originals you have? And then can you put some numbers around the cost savings you get for each show that you kind of build with your own IP versus third party?

Hey, great question. Thanks, and thanks for having us in Orlando. It's a great conference. So look, as I said in my prepared remarks, we are going to start to rebuild back the IP library, and we've commenced that with opening three rooms of shows that we're really excited about that we'll own. It takes a little while from development to getting shows on air. It's a lot of tough work that has to go through the creative process to get these shows, to be performers that we've seen with the likes of the Power franchises and Outlander and so it takes a bit of time. We think that half of the calendar '27 slate will be Starz-owned shows, and then as you move forward, we will always have great content with our partners at Lionsgate around the Power series, we have Outlander with Sony. But we believe that coming into '27, half the slate will be ours, and then we'll continue to add into that as we go.

If you think about the de-aging of shows, new shows are -- they're cheaper than older shows. If you think about kind of just round numbers, 40 hours of television, you could think somewhere between $1 million to $2 million per hour of savings around that, plus we can have international sales that can net that budget down. And so, you can see on scale, when you get to the point, and again, these are just round numbers, these aren't actual numbers. But when you get to the point on scale, you can see there's large content savings by controlling your IP and controlling the ability to control the cost of the first season and then add sales and do it from the international sales. So we think there's a real clear line of path to get to that 20% margin by calendar '28.

Got it, and those are some helpful numbers. And then based on the EBITDA on free cash flow conversion expectations you just gave, leverage should come down to the 2.5 level and below that pretty quickly. So once you get there, how are you thinking about capital allocation and the opportunity to potentially return capital via buybacks or dividends?

I think right now, you know, we're really just focused on getting stabilized, getting separated, unwinding some of the transactional constraints that we have as part of separation and getting down that 2.5 times. At that point, I think we'll make an assessment whether we actually take some of that and continue to expand the content portfolio. We've been pretty successful in launching franchises and spinoffs and prequels that drive subscriber growth, and we think there's a lot of opportunity in the US to continue to grow the business. But right now, we're really laser focused on kind of delevering down to 2.5 times and that's our focus.

Thomas Yeh, Morgan Stanley.

Thanks. Just a quick follow up on the own slate strategy and putting a finer point on how that translates into your cash content spending needs. I think you're running at close to $800 million of cash spend a year over the last two. What's the right level of spending on content when we reach a more steady run rate on the own slate mix? And how much working capital drag should we be expecting in the interim in the context of reaching that 70% free cash flow conversion?

Thomas, thanks for the question. This is Scott. What I would say is we expect that the cash spend to start dropping here, again, as we go through this de-aging of the original slate. So what we are targeting would be about a $700 million of spend in calendar '26. Our ultimate goal would be about $650 million. To achieve that, as Jeff mentioned, the creative process does take a period of time, so we think we would get there over the next couple of years.

Okay, that's helpful. And Jeff, you've just talked historically about consolidation opportunities in the space. What makes sense strategically for you and what's the best way to think about it now that you're a stand-alone asset that has the flexibility and the cash balance to potentially go out and do something?

Thanks, Thomas. I'm not going to spend get into a lot of detail on any M&A at this point, but I do think we have built a really unique and special business, especially the back end, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks. We've got a phenomenal tech back end with a with a great data stack, and the app has continued to be one of the highest rated apps in the business. It allows us flexibility to go build and diversify our revenue stream around ad supported content, not just the Starz Spot content.

And so, we do think there's opportunities for us in terms of partnerships with other brands that are kind of marooned on the linear side that would like to get into the digital side to do whether it's a commercial deal and a commercial arrangement or what have you, but to kind of bring together these brands that are focused on women and underrepresented audiences with different type of content and kind of grow the business together that way. And what that looks like was whether it's commercial or a different arrangement, we're just not going to discuss that at this time.

Barton Crockett, Rosenblatt.

Okay, great. Thanks for taking the question. I was just kind of curious about seeing if you can help us kind of understand what happens with your spend on content from the now separated Lion. I think they reported for the year ending March fiscal, $620 million of revenue from Starz, which I assume is your expense. If you could give us some sense of how that's breaking down and how you see that trending, that would help maybe kind of understand how you see the overall kind of flow of programming cost.

Hey, Martin. How are you? So yeah, I think there's really two sides to the relationship with Lionsgate will continue for a long period of time. One is the Pay-One that we talked about, and that's a really big component of the of the dollars that go to Lionsgate, very powerful slate that works great for our consumers. Like I said, I think Ballerina is really exciting. We're excited to get Michael when it comes to the service. I think the Hunger Games franchise is huge. These movies work incredibly well for us and drive acquisition on scale and so we're very excited that we were able to extend that deal out an extra year on separation. So that's the biggest component, I believe, of dollars.

And then there's obviously the originals, we've been very lucky to have -- to work closely with Kevin and his team to launch all the franchises around Power and shows like P-Valley and work together on that. And so, we've announced that there's a Power spinoff coming. We're excited about that one, I think the fan base will really be excited about that. So that's a big dollar to Lionsgate there. There will be a second one coming, we haven't announced yet, that we're really excited about as well. BMF, there's two spinoffs there as well. So we're going to be in business on scale with Lionsgate for a long period of time, and we're excited that we've created a great shorthand over the last nine years. We think that will continue and it will drive both of our businesses in a very positive way.

But you expect that $620 million to be flattish or trending up or down as you go through your transition to more original content?

I think it's -- well, obviously, as we start to put more of our own content on the air, obviously, and we own our own content, more of our dollars will go to us. But again, I think the majority of that content is in the Pay-One and so I expect it to be kind of flattish.

Okay, all right. That's helpful. And then just in terms of the original, just to understand functionally, I mean, you guys have separated yourselves from the studio and yet you're leaning into doing studio things like creating originals. Is how much of an impediment is not owning the studio apparatus for that? I mean, how much do you have to duplicate to really make this happen, kind of curious if you could flush that out.

Yeah. I mean, look, as I said in my prepared remarks, there's really no incremental cost to us. We've always had a development group. We've got 40 to 50 projects in development today. The nice thing about a three-year separation process is we had a lot of time to plan for the fact that we'd separate and start to build our IP library back up again. And so, we've had a 20-person team doing development pre-Lionsgate that continued during Lionsgate. A lot of the content that you see on the air was actually originally developed at Starz, and then Lionsgate took over the production of it, and so we've been working back and forth with them.

We have a intercompany deal, a production services deal that's in place. And again, because of the shorthand, it's very easy and know each other to get some of the shows that we own that will be then could be produced by Lionsgate. So we think that relationship will continue. But there really -- there isn't really any truly incremental cost for us to continue to develop green light, produce our shows as it was pre-Lionsgate and during Lionsgate.

Okay. And then I'm sorry, I'm going to ask one other just final question here. The economy has been, obviously, front and center in terms of people's questions and you guys don't have ad revenue as you point out, so that lessens one exposure. But to what degree is the macro? Do you notice that you think generally in your business and specifically are you seeing anything right now?

So we aren't seeing anything right now. I mean, I think, again, as the -- we're a consumer-focused business and we obviously have 20 million subscribers, and we'd like to continue to get more. And if consumers, their pocketbook starts to feel pinched because of the macro issues in the marketplace, that's always a concern of ours. But what we have found historically that when things get tough for consumers, they tend to stay home and watch entertainment at home, and because we are front and center in the home, we feel like we are -- we, sometimes, can be the answer to some of that entertainment for the consumer and tough economic times. So while we haven't seen it, we feel like we're in a pretty good place.

(Operator Instructions)

Matthew Harrington, The Benchmark Company.

Thank you. I think one of the nice attributes of the separation is, I know you're never in a position of state of stasis to be a little redundant, but it really enables you to rethink everything. On the marketing side, you talked about $80 million (inaudible). When you look at some of the more sophisticated marketing tools that are available where you can get more attribution, and I know you do on marketing activity. I, obviously, a lot of people on the call are aware how heavily you market on the NBA games on reaching urban audiences. But is there any sort of ongoing rethink on some of the innovations and marketing and how you can better access that very large tan that you're distinctly well-positioned to access?

And then secondly, I have to ask this, what -- what's your reaction to Google and VO3? I mean, is it kind of a sophisticated, fun toy or does it have any implications for the full load, creative producers such as yourself over a period of time? Because it looks like you could do some -- people can do some pretty interesting things with that. I'm sure you're well aware of the possibilities that would attach to Starz. Thank you.

So look, I think we're always trying to test every new kind of marketing tool or ability. The nice thing about having our own -- owning the customer, having our own data stack, and having a team that's really kind of flexible. We're testing in the market every day. We're going to be testing different points of view, different vehicles, we're testing with TikTok, we're testing with Facebook, Instagram, we're testing Outdoor. I mean, we have various sundry different things that we're doing across all different vehicles, whether it's the core subscriber that we look at or it's somebody tangentially around that that has a different way in. We're always looking and testing. I think we're always looking to find the most efficient way to acquire customers.

We've been very lucky that we -- we've always been able to acquire customers in a profitable way and drive lifetime value and reduce churn, and that really is because we're constantly testing every day. So as new tools come up where we have them in the lab, we're playing with them, we're trying with them, and we're always trying to be more efficient. I think our sack has come down almost 50% over the last couple of years because of our ability to just find the consumers that we want. We've also been able to pivot the way we target based on as a complimentary service wanting to be a partner of all. We've actually used some of the success of our broad-based streaming partners to use their subscriber base to target them as add-ons and so we've been looking at different ways, and I think our group has been pretty agile in terms of using technology to kind of grow the subscriber base.

I would just say also we're a focused service. We're really focused, again, on key cohorts, women and underrepresented audiences. So you really sort of develop that machine over time and you're able to target that audience efficiently and back to them again and again. So as Jeff said, whether it's upper funnel marketing or performance marketing, we have a relationship with these audiences and we're able to sort of speak to them and bring them back year over year at a very efficient rate.

Yeah. And to your second question, I think there's really two sides of the kind of advanced computing stuff that we're seeing in the marketplace today. Obviously, on the content side, reducing content cost is what we're all trying to achieve, but we will -- obviously, we'll be a fast follower in a lot of this looking for our studio partners to help us really understand what we can and can't do in a way that is respectful to the creative process and respectful to the talent that we have in the community and be very cognizant of that always.

I think the other side that I get more excited about is the acquisition churn, retention, content scheduling side that allows us to go into the millions and millions of data sets that we've had over the last seven years building our subscription business and really trying to find more efficient and better ways to acquire customers, acquire content that our customers want to watch, schedule that content in a way that makes the customer stickier and ultimately create an increased lifetime value and take costs out of the front end of the business. And so, that's the place that I think we're really focused on today. On the content side, I think we'll look for our studio partners to help us to understand what the art of the possible is there.

Alan Gould, Loop Capital.

Thanks. Hi, Jeff. A few questions here on keeping on -- keeping subs and minimizing churn. One, how many series, originals do you need a year to keep the subscribers engaged? Two, did you say $1 million to $2 million per hour costs that just seemed really low to me. And then three, I know you're doing some bundling with other services, how much does bundling help reduce churn?

Yeah, it's Alison. I can take the last question first. We have seen the promise of bundling really pay off in the business. We are continuing to bundle. I think we're sort of leading the industry in bundling because as Jeff mentioned, we've really been built as a differentiated complementary service to all of the broad-based streamers, so north of 20% retention is what we're seeing on a bundled customer on the platforms where we bundle. We're also seeing the benefit of net new customers coming in because remember, you're putting your programming slates together, and so, you're able to really juice gross ads when you do that. And as we measure it, bundles are accretive to revenue as well, so they're really extending lifetime value and they are driving incremental revenue, but definitely the benefit of retention is showing up in the business for us.

Yeah, and to your other two questions, I think the $1 million to $2 million was a cost savings per hour, we're sitting somewhere around average cost per hour around $7 million today. The last time, the business was over $300 million of OIBDA, we were around $5 million, $5.5 million. And so, as you turn the slate over and go from more season series -- shows, seasons to new, you can pull a lot of cost out of the business just by resetting the economics of a Season 1 versus a Season 4 or Season 5. And also, you can also net some of that cost down by selling internationally. That international component, we didn't get the benefit of it by not having ownership. So those two components really help you take that cost out of the business.

In terms of the number of shows, we think it's somewhere between 8 and 10 shows a year really allows us to have a consistent flow of content for the two core demos that have no gaps that allows us to really move customers from one show to the next, extend lifetime value without having going back into the marketplace and competing for customers on the front end because we're keeping the same customer longer. And that number will change depending on the mix of own shows, licensed shows, and acquisitions. There's abilities like we did with Sweet Tea and Mary and George to acquire great content at a very reasonable cost to add more tail shows around our big original. So as we look into the marketplace, we'll be very opportunistic about acquisitions versus license versus our own as well.

Thank you. This does include the question-and-answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Nilay Shah for any further remarks.

Thanks, everyone. Please refer to the news and events tab under the Investor Relations section of our website for discussion of certain non-GAAP forward-looking measures discussed on this call. Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program; you may now disconnect. Good day.