Boat Rocker Media Inc

TSX:BRMI

Earnings Call Analysis

Boat Rocker Media Navigating Industry Shifts

Boat Rocker Media concluded 2023 with strong results despite industry-wide strikes causing delays. The company's TV segment saw robust revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth, at 124% and 65% respectively, despite a less active production year. Full-year adjusted EBITDA outperformed the anticipated $30 million, reaching $32.6 million. The company's strong cash position of $72.5 million, with $37 million available for use, underscores its resilience and efficiency. Looking ahead, 2024 is expected to present challenges with adjusted EBITDA anticipated to drop to around $20 million. However, Boat Rocker is strategically increasing investment in content, enforcing its reputation as a developer of compelling content such as its premium drama series on Apple TV+ and multiple projects that are resonating globally.

A Resilient Year Amidst Industry Uncertainty

In 2023, Boat Rocker faced a challenging environment marked by significant strikes from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, which slowed work across the U.S. entertainment industry. Despite these difficulties, Boat Rocker managed to sustain high activity levels and successfully delivered on their premium scripted production slate. This resilience was reflected in a substantial revenue increase of 56% year-over-year, totaling $475.4 million for the full year of 2023, although the fourth quarter saw a decrease of 42% in revenue compared to the same period the previous year.

Financial Highlights and Concerns

Adjusted EBITDA for the year exceeded the $30 million target set in Q3, reaching $32.6 million, signaling effective control over operations and finances despite a net loss of $26.9 million for the full year 2023, a downturn from the net income of $1.8 million in the previous year. This loss included a noncash goodwill impairment charge of $15.2 million. However, Boat Rocker maintains a strong cash position with $37 million available for use, which is critical for their strategic investments in content and intellectual property.

Strategic Investments and Portfolio Growth

The company's investment strategy emphasizes growing their content library, already valued at approximately $70 million, by significantly investing $174 million in content creation in 2023. This strategy includes international series, premium documentaries, and co-production equity investments. One highlight is the success of Beacon 23 and new premium documentary initiatives, which have seen strong international sales.

Looking Ahead: Adjusting Expectations for 2024

Boat Rocker anticipates a dip in adjusted EBITDA to around $20 million for 2024. This expectation is based on lower output and earnings when compared to 2023's extraordinary performance. Nevertheless, they plan to maintain investment in content and look for additional opportunities, including mergers and acquisitions and international content deals, leveraging their strong cash reserves to support these ventures.

Navigating Through an Evolving Marketplace

The company focuses on being agile and proactive in a tentative industry environment, where content demand and production are gradually returning to normality but remain unpredictable. Boat Rocker's capability to identify and invest in promising content, coupled with its production and distribution infrastructure, positions it for potentially fruitful opportunities as global markets recover.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Operator]

Good morning. My name is Joel, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Boat Rocker Media Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

Before turning the call over to management, I would like to remind listeners that today's remarks include non-IFRS measures, reconciliations between Boat Rocker's IFRS and non-IFRS results can be found in the company's MD&A. Additionally, management's outlook for 2023 and beyond, anticipated financial and operating results, plans and objectives and answers to your questions will contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect management's current opinions, beliefs, estimates, expectations and assumptions, and are based on information currently available to management, which includes assumptions about continued revenue based on historical past performance, perception of trends and current business conditions, expected future developments and other factors which management considers appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances.

This forward-looking information represents management's expectations as of today and accordingly is subject to change. Such information is based on current assumptions that may materialize and are contained in Boat Rocker's annual MD&A dated March 28, 2024, and is subject to a number of important risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information.

Description of the risks that may affect future results is contained in Boat Rocker's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2023, as well as its annual MD&A dated March 28, 2024, which are available on the corporate website and its filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Mr. John Young, Chief Executive Officer of Boat Rocker Media. Mr. Young, you may begin your remarks.

[John Young, executive]

Thank you, Joel. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for the Boat Rocker Media Fourth Quarter and Year-end 2023 Results Conference Call. On the call with me today are Judy Adam, our CFO, David Fortier, our Co-Executive Chairman and Co-Chairman of Boat Rocker Studios.

I will touch on our results and outlook before turning it over to Judy for a financial review. Then David will discuss our Studio business before we open up the call to questions.

So by all accounts, 2023 was an extraordinary year. The media and entertainment industry as a whole was rocked by historic labor action by both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. These strikes significantly sold work, particularly in the U.S. and caused us and our peers to delay many of our core business activities.

Despite a significant pause in development in production, Boat Rocker maintained high levels of activity across our studio, largely as a result of projects that were finished shooting, and we're working their way through post production when the strikes began.

We successfully completed delivery of our premium scripted production slate as planned. And in Q4, the international sales from those shows started to appear in our P&L in a very meaningful way. As a result, full year revenue and adjusted EBITDA in our Television segment were 124% and 65%, respectively. David will detail a range of other accomplishments later on in the call.

Given the extreme challenges that the year presented, we are very proud of the company's overall output and our financial results. Full year 2023 adjusted EBITDA was $32.6 million, ahead of the target of approximately $30 million we highlighted in our Q3 earnings call. We achieved these results without any corporate debt and while growing our cash available for use to $37 million.

Over the course of the year, we also continued to add value and volume to our content library, a core asset of our business. At the end of 2023, Boat Rocker's fully delivered owned IP content library had a carrying value of approximately $70 million. The distribution library of owned and third-party IP now totals approximately 9,700 half hours.

The strikes and pullbacks in spending by buyers last year muted our 2023 results. But the more significant impact of the delays in development orders and, in some cases, premier dates and the overall changes in the media industry will be felt by us and others in our sector in 2024.

As we mentioned last quarter, the strikes exacerbated industry trends that slowed progress in key areas of our business. As a result, Boat Rocker is expecting 2024 to be less representative of the output in earnings that we have achieved since going public, and we're anticipating adjusted EBITDA of approximately $20 million.

While we await the return to a more steady pattern of orders and renewals, we are proactively using this year to double down on our content strategy as IP owners and to invest in and secure our future to concentrated content investment, particularly in scripted and premium documentary IP, although it's still early in the year, we are already seeing this strategy materialize with strong international sales ramping up for our owned IP title Beacon 23, as well as seeing early successes with our new premium documentary strategy, which David will elaborate on it shortly.

Between a focused content strategy, prudent cost management and growing asset value, we are confident that we're continuing to set the company up for long-term success.

I'm now going to turn it over to Judy for a brief financial review. Judy?

[Judy Adam, executive]

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. As John mentioned, Boat Rocker delivered strong full year results in 2023 despite a very challenging year in our industry, we finished the year with adjusted EBITDA of $32.6 million, ahead of our target of approximately $30 million.

Full year 2023 revenue was $475.4 million versus $304.3 million for the same period in 2022, an increase of $171.1 million or 56%. Fourth quarter revenue was $55 million versus $111.3 million in 2022, a decrease of $46.3 million or 42%. The significant rise in the full year period was due to the production and delivery of 5 premium scripted series, which, on average, generate higher revenues than the company's other types of content.

The quarterly variance is owing to the timing of deliveries, lower volume of service, production work in unscripted and Kids & Family and lower revenues in the Representation segment due to significant slowdown in work during the 2023 U.S. labor strike.

The Television segment performed very well in 2023 with revenue for the full year 2023 of $387.0 million, up 124% from $172.5 million in 2022 and segment profit of $34.6 million, up 65% from $20.9 million in 2022. The year-over-year increase was driven by strong content deliveries, particularly in scripted, which resulted in full year production revenue of $333.4 million, up 285% from $86.7 million in the prior year.

These content deliveries also contributed to strong distribution revenue in both the quarter and full year period of $8.7 million and $11.4 million, respectively. As anticipated, these revenues are the beginning stages of Boat Rocker's new owned IP scripted titles delivered in 2022 and 2023 coming online.

Service revenues for the full year was $28.2 million compared to $71.7 million in the same period of 2022, a decrease of $43.5 million. Reduced U.S. service revenue was slightly offset by Canadian service revenue in both the quarter and full year period. Additionally, Boat Rocker's full year 2022 results included executive producer and other fees with no comparative amounts in 2023.

In terms of Q4 2023, revenue for the Television segment was $45 million compared to $74.8 million in Q4 2022, a decline of 40%. The quarterly variance reflects a decrease in production revenues of $21.2 million, principally due to the mix and timing of deliveries and a decrease in service revenues of $17.4 million due to lower volume of service production work, offset by higher distribution revenues of $8.7 million, largely owing to the sales of our owned IP scripted titles.

In the Kids & Family segment, revenue in the full year period was $58.6 million compared to $91.1 million in 2022, a decline of 36%. In Q4 2023, it was $13.5 million compared to $24.5 million in Q4 of 2022, a decline of 45%. The changes in this segment were predominantly owing to lower service output compared to last year.

Representation revenues in the full year 2023 was $29.8 million compared to $40.8 million in the year ended December 31, 2022, a decrease of $11 million while in Q4 2023, it was $6.5 million compared to $12 million in the same period of 2022, a decrease of $5.5 million.

Performance in both periods is directly the result of stalled or canceled production due to the WGA strike, which lasted 5 months from May 2 to September 27, 2023, and SAG-AFTRA strike, which lasted approximately 4 months from July 14 to November 9, 2023.

Production, distribution and service costs for the full period were $359.7 million compared to $181.8 million for 2022, an increase of $177.9 million or 98%. The increase was mainly attributable to higher amortization of investment in content of $197.4 million associated with the increase in production revenue I discussed earlier.

Meanwhile, in Q4, costs were $36.5 million compared to $68.9 million for the same period in 2022, a decrease of $32.4 million or 47%. This is mainly attributable to lower amortization of investment in content of $18.9 million associated with lower production, revenue and service costs commensurate with the lower level of service production.

Total general and administrative expenses declined modestly in both the full year and fourth quarter periods. Excluding share-based compensation, severance and transaction-related and other costs in both Q4 and full year 2023 and 2022 period, G&A expense was $21.3 million and $84.8 million. These costs are down 12% quarter-over-quarter and 6% year-over-year.

Full year adjusted EBITDA was $32.6 million compared to $34.6 million in 2022, driven by strong scripted deliveries in the Television segment but offset by softer performance in the Representation and Kids & Family segment. Q4 2023 adjusted EBITDA was $7.6 million versus $17.3 million in Q4 2022. A significant amount of the quarterly variance is owing to the mix and timing of deliveries.

Boat Rocker recorded a net loss for the full year 2023 are $26.9 million compared to a net income of $1.8 million for the same period of 2022. While net loss in the fourth quarter was $3.1 million versus a net income of $5.7 million in the same period in Q4 2022. The negative variance in the full year period includes noncash goodwill impairment charge of $15.2 million taken in the company's unscripted CGU in Q3 2023.

Boat Rocker's cash position continues to be very strong, with total cash at the end of 2023 of $72.5 million, of which $37 million is cash available for use. As anticipated, cash available for use increased over the course of the year, ending $5.5 million above 2022, primarily due to healthy segment profit in the Television segment as well as premium cost management company-wide.

Boat Rocker's cash reserves continue to be key to our success as they allow us to align our strategy with sound financial planning. As our full year results demonstrate Boat Rocker has the capability to deliver premium products according to schedule, grow our asset value, manage our cash and realize the value of our IP over the long term.

I will now turn the call over to David to talk about our studio highlights.

[David Fortier, executive]

Thanks, Judy, and good morning, everyone. As John mentioned, 2023 was an unusual year in the film and television industry, with double labor strikes providing cover for a larger industry reset. We saw the U.S. launch of several of our new series pushed out and development activity in all areas heavily muted. But in this downturn, we have also seen opportunities with buyers increasingly willing to partner on rights ownership in the international marketplace for programming harder than ever.

As we anticipate the return to a more stable order cycle within the U.S. industry, we are increasingly focused within our studio on investing in owning and managing the exploitation of film and TV projects, from our earliest days, originating and producing series like Being Erica, The Next Step and Orphan Black, to current projects like Beacon 23, American Rust and Dino Ranch, owning and selling IP worldwide, it's what Boat Rocker is best known for and will continue to be a key strategic pillar for us.

To this end, we are materially increasing our investment in content, including domestic and international series and premium documentaries. We believe more strongly than ever that using our capital and corporate resources to cause projects to be greenlits and then to manage the monetization of that content is the pathway to future growth.

I'd like to highlight the premier this month of our newest premium drama series on Apple TV+, Palm Royale, starring Kristen Wiig, Ricky Martin, Laura Dern, Allison Janney and comedy legend Carrol Burnett. This series, which we originated through a production partnership with Laura Dern's.Jaywalker Films has debuted to critical and viewer acclaim and is currently listed as the top new show on Apple TV+.

We also recently announced the greenlit of Season 3 of our other Apple TV+ title, the Sci-Fi series Invasion from Simon Kinberg after spending several months in Apple's top 10. The first season of Beacon 23, our newest premium Sci-Fi series had a strong debut on MGM+ this fall and is currently one of the top 10 TV shows globally on MGM's parent service, Amazon Prime.

The launch of the second season of American Rust starring Jeff Daniels and Maura Tierney was delayed during the strikes. However, we were excited to see it Premier on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Canada on March 28. Early response has been excellent with strong critical reviews and the series landing on the top 10 most watched shows on Amazon in the U.S. on its first few days of streaming.

Meanwhile, AMC announced the Season 1 of Orphan Black: Echoes, starring Krysten Ritter, Keeley Hawes, and Amanda Fix will premiere on AMC, AMC+ and BBC America on June 23, 2024. The U.S. launch of this series was also held back during the labor disputes, and we're excited to finally see it become available to North American viewers.

We have already sold this title to major English-speaking territories worldwide, including ITV in the U.K. Stan entertainment in Australia and TVNZ in New Zealand, where it has debuted to rave reviews, and we expect to see additional sales as the year progresses.

As the first step in our strategy to ramp up investment in international series and films, we recently announced that we have teamed up with Ireland's Deadpan Pictures to co-fund coproduce and sell the scripted comedy drama series Video Nasty. We look forward to making more announcements in the coming months regarding our involvement in other international projects as this strategy expands.

Over the past few years, Boat Rocker has established itself as a leading producer of premium documentary content with critical and commercial successes like the Emmy nominated Billie Eilish, The World's a Little Blurry for Apple TV+, Emmy nominated Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields for Hulu and Critics Choice Documentary nominee BS High for HBO. Given our successes in this space and our belief there is a robust marketplace for commercial documentaries, we are rolling out a strategy to invest more meaningfully in the slate of self-funded documentary films.

One of our first projects is the feature documentary War Game from award-winning directors, Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January to very positive reviews, and for which we are finalizing sales and distribution deals.

We are also financing and selling the new premium feature documentary Merchants of Joy from Director Celia Aniskovich which follows 5 New York City families as they source bargain and hustle to sell Christmas trees on the streets of New York, Lending Street Smarts and Holiday Spirit.

Our investment strategy continues to be robust in Kids & Family. We're continuing to be in production on the third season of Dino Ranch with expected delivery in the second half of this year. The show was recognized with the 2024 Kidscreen Award for Best Holiday or Special Episode and has been nominated for several others throughout the year. This remains a critical piece of IP for the company, and we're looking forward to continuing to grow this brand.

As these highlights demonstrate Boat Rocker is a trusted source for developing, creating and distributing content that audiences love. In 2023, this was recognized with 49 Canadian screen award nominations across a range of categories. We congratulate all the team members whose hard work garnered this amazing recognition and wish everyone luck when the awards are presented at the end of May.

As expected, 2023 was a down year for Representation, both writers and actors were on strike for a large part of the year in the United States, virtually shutting down scripted production. With both strikes now resolved, we are starting to see a normalization in return to work for our representation clients and expect that this will continue to gain momentum over the course of the year as the industry regains its footing.

Like many in our sector, we anticipate 2024 to be a challenging year. The long tail impact of the U.S. labor strikes, coupled with changing industry dynamics are causing a period of considerable uncertainty. However, we have conviction in our owned IP strategy, international distribution capabilities and know that regardless of industry changes in world events, audiences around the world will continue to desire high-quality content, exactly what Boat Rocker was built to make. As always, we look forward to sharing our developments with you over the coming year.

Operator, that concludes our prepared comments this morning. We'd now like to begin the question-and-answer session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Drew McReynolds with RBC Capital.

[Drew McReynolds, analyst]

Let's just start on the investment in content obviously, in the press release and MD&A, you're pointing to an increase in that investment. Just wondering if you could kind of help us think what that magnitude would be? And I guess, just from a modeling perspective, I look at the added investment, I think you did about $175 million in 2023 and $230 million in 2022. So just wondering kind of what we should expect in 2024 and beyond in terms of that level?

[Judy Adam, executive]

It's Judy. Just maybe I think the numbers you were quoting were from an investment content reported from the statement of cash flows. Yes, when you look at our additions to the investment in content, in the year for 2023, it was $174 million. I mean that's made up of a whole bunch of areas as you would know.

I mean, we definitely expect level of content in debt additions in the Canadian side of our business to remain very robust. But also, as we mentioned on the call, given the pause in orders and production cycle, we'll see that be down a little bit on the U.S. side of the business. But I'll turn it over to David to add some further color on that.

[David Fortier, executive]

I think the point that we're making, Drew, and you get this is, our strategy of investing in IP, and that obviously comes in many shapes and forms, whether it's fully funding documentaries, distribution advances on premium scripted dramas, co-production equity investments, we have the ability to analyze the investment opportunities and then obviously participate in not only the production but the exploitation of the content.

And so it's a strategy that's been at the core of the business since we started and continues to be the most meaningful part and also where the opportunity lies as buyers mainly in the U.S., but worldwide are continuing to pause in terms of speed and volume for the time being, the ability for us to complete financing on projects to make them happen or give them a massive head start with our own investment is each for our company because of what we can do once that investment is made.

[Drew McReynolds, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. And then stepping back and looking through, obviously, what's still a kind of a mixed year as the whole industry gets back on it, so just trying to understand the earnings power here for Boat Rocker and what's changed or not changed? And just couple questions along that front. I think first, in terms of streamlining your operations, as you alluded to, you've done a great job over the years continuing to boost profitability, there's obviously revenue mix changes as we look forward. Just wondering from a, let's say, adjusted EBITDA margin perspective, just overall, what your kind of expectations would be not just for 2024, but more importantly, kind of a more normalized 2025?

[John Young, executive]

I'll jump in here, Drew. Thank you. Yes, I think it's a job at every stage to look at where our costs are at. And I think over the last 4 or 5 quarters, we've tried to do that. You'll see that reflected in our [ SG&A ] generally going down.

The revenue mix you pointed out, I think, is a key part of that margin profile. And I think for 2024, we're expecting that EBITDA margins to be similar to what we've had over the last year or 2, lower revenue, but again, maintaining a decent solid EBITDA margin.

And that does reflect the fact that certainly in '24, more distribution revenue, a rebounding of representation revenue, we're seeing those higher margin mixes come back. And as David pointed out, we're not -- we don't have those good margin, larger scripted dramas this year just because of the timing. So definitely, margins kind of representative of sort of last year too even though the revenues will be lower because of those big scripted shows not being in our forecast for this year.

[Drew McReynolds, analyst]

Okay. That's great. And -- maybe just one last one for me. Just with respect to the free cash flow, again, you've done a good job just kind of managing and generating free cash flow out of the aggregate business. Again, looking past, I think, 2024 somewhat. Is there any change to your view that you're balancing kind of free cash flow positivity with obviously capitalizing on investment opportunities, et cetera? Just any change to kind of your philosophy on generating free cash flow?

[John Young, executive]

Thanks, Drew. Maybe Judy can add anything. But I think we saw a nice increase in that cash available for use, which we've been saying again is probably a more important metric KPI, if you will, to look at rather than necessarily the overall free cash flow, which, as you know, brings in the vagaries and timing of when we borrow production financing and when we repay it.

So adding to our cash reserves getting up to almost $37 million or just over $37 million now on our balance sheet puts us in a healthy spot. And we hope to -- as Dave said, we actually hope to really spend this year and doubling down on that content investment.

Basically, putting our capital resources or human effort that the ability to spend the money with our teams within Boat Rocker to make content to greenlight it within our own 4 walls of Boat Rocker is a real part of the strategy this year, especially with the lower -- the renewals not there yet on the big scripted drama.

So things like M&A, looking to acquire in international territories, content, coproduction and cofinancing opportunities to finish off financing and get distribution rights, own IP you'll see us do much more of that this year and using and try to utilize with a good return profile that cash that we've got available for that spend. So again, I think our ability to do that and keep the business going as a key part of our strategy and a great asset.

[Drew McReynolds, analyst]

Okay. No, that's great. Sorry, just one last one here and maybe for David, as we kind of sit here 1st of April and the industry gets back on its peak, in your prepared remarks, you've alluded to how that's underway. Just wondering what your expectation is for when the industry normalizes? Where are we today versus where you think would be kind of into the back half of this year and into 2025? And I know there's a lot of moving parts to your business. But I guess predominantly on the television production side and content demand there?

[David Fortier, executive]

Yes. I think you said it correctly. It is really hard to tell. I think if you'd asked me or anyone in our industry, where we thought would be now 6 months ago, I think we probably all would have gotten it wrong. I think the return to normality has just taken a little bit longer. And like I said, there's tentativeness in the buying in the dollars and also in the volume of greenlits. I think from our point of view, we're starting to see a slight loosening up and some of it is objective, but the objective view is that it will continue. The demand for content is still there. I think everyone's just sort of waiting to see where the final pieces drop.

On our side, with Season 2 of American Rust just launching Palm Royale being where it is on the Apple TV+ service, with Beacon 23 performing extremely well and Season 2 launching soon all over the world. And the other scripted dramas that we're talking about Orphan Black launching in June. These are all shows that have been pushed back in terms of production and development because of the unrest and they're all just starting to get going.

So for us, that's an early indicator of things moving and certainly gives us a lot of optimistic thoughts for the future. So -- where -- how fast it will get back? Hard to tell internationally. We hear things from different sides. Sometimes people are a little bit despondent, but on the other side, the coinvestment, coproduction opportunities that we're seeing are quite interesting and look to be really potentially fruitful for us.

I think you have to know where the greenlits are being given across the world, and you have to have the capabilities to capitalize on them with production capabilities, distribution capabilities and investment capabilities, and that's exactly what we're doing.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Vince Valentini with TD Cowen.

[Vince Valentini, analyst]

My first question is related to this investment in content. I understand that's the best thing to do to run the business, but you are a public company. Why would you consider buying back your shares. I mean your $37 million of cash could buy back over half of the public float at the current share price.

Is it not better to just greatly reduce the float and then improve the per share economics for the remaining shareholders first, take advantage of this, what I would argue is ridiculously low share price and then invest in content in the future. I mean we take a pause because you may not have a share price at this level 2 years down the road.

[John Young, executive]

Yes. Great question. Thank you, Vince. I'll jump in. I think first things first, they're not mutually exclusive. That's the part of the key. We absolutely can do both. And we've got our NCIB in place, as you know, right through the end of, I think it's August before we need to renew it.

And we plan and we absolutely will be using that when and if we're allowed to under the various conditions and restrictions placed on those things. So it's a question of, again, being at the right point in our cycle and the right time to be able to do it. So it's not lost on us how the value of our company. I mean the market cap, I think, is about $50 million, when you said we've almost $40 million of cash in our bank. You can't let alone the value of our assets and our ability to generate free cash flow and indeed, sorry, cash available for use and grow the company.

So we are absolutely doing that. We're spending time with our board on those matters, not mutually exclusive, and we do plan to try and take advantage of that completely, I think, out of whack, undervalued stock price at the moment we can.

[Vince Valentini, analyst]

And somewhat similar. Is there anything you can do to try to show the market how out of sync the valuation is versus your cash and your assets by selling something, even if it's small. I mean we saw obviously recently 9 Story to a deal with Scholastic, which the valuation looked pretty attractive. I mean do you have any kids IP or any other subsegments that you could consider supercharging your cash balance by selling something?

[John Young, executive]

It's something we think about. I mean, being public, everything is available for sale, as you know, Vince, so we definitely have inbounds and we definitely have discussions like this. But I think I'd say a couple of things. One is that we've got a great team and a great set of assets across all of the genres of our company. It's taken a long time from Dave and I have been starting this to where we're at to build the assets and the team that we've got. So that's first and foremost what we try to build upon.

We tried to make the case to the market that with nearly $40 million of cash on our balance sheet with a carrying value of the delivered owned IP this year in this quarter at nearly $70 million or -- at $70 million with our ability to generate in a very down year similar margin and approximately $20 million of EBITDA.

At some point, we don't want to go so far as to make any rash decision to do something just in order to explain to people why they're not seeing the value in our stock. I think you should see the value in our company in terms of what we've built up over the last 15 years. We're trying to make the case with these points, and I hope the market does see it.

[Vince Valentini, analyst]

Okay. Switch gears to the results and the outlook. Can you first clarify Invasion Season 3, is that on your budget to be delivered during calendar 2024? Or is it just starts producing this year and doesn't get delivered until next year?

[John Young, executive]

It's a bit of a mixed bag there. But the answer, I think, to the question you're looking for, Vince is, yes, Invasion 3 is in our plans for 2024. As you know, the deals we do on all sorts of different shows we've outlined in the past, and this one is more of what we call our nonwriting EP yields, where we've done the work with Apple to -- for Apple to buy the content, deliver and distribute it. So for us, yes, it's a great piece of content, one that we continue to see perform really well, and it is in our plans and the forecast guidance that we've given for '24.

[Vince Valentini, analyst]

Okay. That unfortunately confuses me a bit more versus what I was going to ask, anyway. You're signaling a pretty weak year in '24. And quite frankly, when I saw the press release and the results late last week, it didn't shock me at all because it seemed like there were so many timing issues from the strikes and it's going to take a while to get the wheels back turning and produce all this good stuff.

But today, you seem to be outlining quite the slate of deliveries Palm Royale and This Next Season Invasion, American Rust, Orphan Black, Dino Ranch Season 3 in the second half of this year. If all of these marquee titles are delivering in 2024, where is the holdback to drop revenue and EBITDA to be so much below the normal run rate?

[David Fortier, executive]

Yes. I'll jump in here, Vince. The shows are launching in 2024, Orphan Black's launching, as I said, on AMC and AMC+ in the U.S. in June, deliveries have been made. So deliveries were made in '23 shows -- the timing of the shows for -- which is determined by whoever buys the shows or whoever the commissions that shows, those are launching.

And I think what we're trying to say is that's why 2024 in terms of revenue and EBITDA is taking a hit because of the timing of it that what we're hopeful for and the optimism here and when we speak about those shows is that they're all performing extremely well on the services. You look at Invasion and Palm Royale on the Apple TV+ service and just how fantastically they're doing when you turn on your TV is the first thing that comes up.

The same thing when you turn on Amazon and the first thing you come up see comped at American Rust and Beacon 23, those are shows that obviously got delivered last year are premiering now, i.e. whether it's first season or second season and we're hopeful and are hoping to get renewals on those shows so that we can make them again and deliver them in '25. That's the point.

[Vince Valentini, analyst]

Okay. So my answer to -- my naivety is your -- you already booked a lot of this revenue in '23 and then there's a pause in '24, even though the shows are now coming on air. Okay, that makes sense.

[John Young, executive]

That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

[David Fortier, executive]

Except for Invasion, which is the outlier because it's Season 3, that's the one that we can -- are able to recognize in '24.

[Judy Adam, executive]

Yes. And just one more point Vince is that these deliveries that occurred in late 2022 and '23, we're now seeing the distribution revenue continuing, and that will also continue into 2024.

[Vince Valentini, analyst]

Okay. So last one, I know it will be difficult, but if you can give us any sense, I think it will help and Drew, I think, try to get at this a little bit, too. Is the -- when you do get back, assuming 2025 is a more normal cadence of activity and the revenue showing up.

Do you have in your mind that you'd get back close to double-digit EBITDA margins and/or close to $30 million of EBITDA versus $20 million? Do you just see this as a pause? Or do you think there's been some sort of shift where 25 is the new $30 million?

[John Young, executive]

Yes. It's a little too early to give that sort of answer in the sense in terms of the guidance, but we don't see it as an absolute structural shift. We've probably passed the peak TV amount. We saw that from some stats there that 2022 was probably the most spend. We're seeing that being down a bit at '24 and probably maybe slightly back up in '25, but we probably have had that peak. We don't see that as a structural shift, just simply a tough period that we've gone through where people kind of reset and look at what's important to them.

So I think that's absolutely right. And from Dave's comments in terms of the slate is really strong, and we're going to be investing in content that we can greenlight and own and distribute. So we're actually pretty excited about where we can get back to beyond this year.

[David Fortier, executive]

Yes. I think it's also impossible to tell, but the shows that we're talking about are big fancy premium scripted drama that really everyone knows about. But our company, as you know, is more than just premium scripted drama. We're proud of it, but we make all types of content, premium content across different genres and also more modestly budgeted content that all have the ability to be breakout successes, especially when we control the rights, and we're able to capitalize on not only the distribution revenues, but also the quality in the revenue and the earnings that we can make off the IP on a long tail.

And so when you combine that with the services businesses and all the other things that we do and the compounding of more series over years and years and years, we're becoming less reliant on some of these bigger scripted shows regardless of the fact that we hope to get renewals on them and keep making more of them. And so that's the diversity of the company, and that's what we're looking to capitalize on.

[Vince Valentini, analyst]

Great. Sorry for so many questions, but thanks for all the answers.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from David McFadgen with Cormark Securities.

[David McFadgen, analyst]

I was just wondering if you can give us an idea on the -- what your level of confidence is that 2025, you're going to grow again. I'm just wondering what the visibility is? Are you already maybe signed some contracts for greenlits in 2025 now? Just kind of wondering where you stand with that?

[David Fortier, executive]

Yes. Again, really hard to tell because a lot of it is not obviously entirely within our control when it comes to renewals. We continue to develop across all of our different divisions and hope to sell shows, some of which we sell entirely and sell off the rights, but a large part of which we also try to retain rights and participate in the greenlight process. So we're doing that. We're hoping to be able to make an announcement in the short term about a new series, which we can't talk about yet.

But when we look to 2025, I'll just sort of repeat what I was saying earlier, which is Palm Royale in its first season is top of the list on Apple TV+, Invasion lived in the top 10 seasons 1 and 2. We have a Greenlight for 3, American Rust is top of the charts on Amazon Prime and Beacon 23 is a top 10 performer on Amazon Prime in the world.

So -- and as I said, Orphan Black: Echoes hasn't even premiered yet in the U.S. We don't control the greenlit light because these being serious, we have partners that have obviously a vested interest. All we can point to is the quality of the shows and the success that we're having in them. That's the only visibility that we have plus all the development activities that we have, and we continue to work hard to get more shows made, more shows greenlit control the rights and exploit them across the world.

[John Young, executive]

And David, remember, we'll be back to you guys in about 6 weeks or so, I think it is with our Q1. So there'll be more chance for us to talk about it at that point.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to John for closing remarks.

[John Young, executive]

Thank you, Joel. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. As I said, we'll be back in about 6 weeks' time with our Q1 results. Look forward to chatting and giving everyone an update on Boat Rocker at that point. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.