AMC Networks has rolled up BBC America, paying $42 million in cash for the cable network.
The news was disclosed in the company’s third-quarter earnings release. The transaction, which gives AMC Networks the 50.1% of the network that it did not previously have, closed November 1. AMC Networks and the BBC entered into the venture in 2014.
Signature BBC America originals like Killing Eve and Orphan Black became major components of the overall AMC Networks programming portfolio in the 2010s. More recently, streaming has become the focus for most traditional media companies, leaving linear cable networks to wither, though they still throw off significant cash.
Like its peers in the cable programming sector, AMC Networks will often roadblock programming across multiple networks, as is the case with BBC America.
The earnings release noted a bookkeeping aspect of the rollup. “Assuming the transaction had closed on September 30, 2024,” the end of the third quarter, it said, “$132.9 million of redeemable noncontrolling interest related to BBC America, and reflected on the condensed consolidated balance sheet, would have been eliminated. Additionally, the Company’s future contractual programming commitments to BBC Studios would have been significantly reduced.”
In the future, the release added, “AMC Networks will no longer be making any related cash distributions to non-controlling interests.”
Launched in 1998, BBC America does not participate in the licensing revenue that the UK broadcaster relies on. Instead, it has taken in affiliate fees and advertising revenue, but both declined by double digits across AMC Networks during the quarter amid the long-term decline of linear networks.
