Camile.Bidan
Banned
I checked out the Viacom 2016 10K because they own the Transformers movies, which I believe is traditionally biggest western release in China.
From their MDA page 42
"Ancillary revenues decreased $17 million, or 9%, to $174 million in the year ended September 30, 2016. Domestic ancillary revenues remained flat, while international ancillary revenues decreased 30% principally due to lower merchandising revenues from Transformers: Age of Extinction."
Looks like international merchandise accounts for a large portion of their revenues. I don't know how much of that is china because it's not specified.
But jesus Christ the movie business is definitely not something that anyone should go into.
From their MDA page
"
Worldwide theatrical revenues decreased $236 million, or 28%, to $605 million in the year ended September 30, 2016. Revenues from our current year releases decreased $189 million principally due to the comparison with the performance of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation in the prior year. Significant current year releases included Star Trek Beyond, Daddy’s Home, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, The Big Short and 10 Cloverfield Lane, compared with Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Terminator: Genisys, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water and Interstellar in the prior year. Carryover revenues decreased $47 million principally reflecting revenues in the prior year from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Domestic and international theatrical revenues decreased 13% and 41%, respectively. Foreign exchange had a 3-percentage point unfavorable impact on international theatrical revenues."
Revenues declined 28% in a single year! and looks like it decreased 30% in the prior year. I didn't realize how bad it was getting. I think we are going to see big studios folding in the next few years.
I also looked at their segment disclosure (Financial Disclosure no.19)
It appears that revenue from "All other" (doesn't include US, EUR,middle east and africa) international revenue declined from $1.5 billion in 2014, when Transformers: AOE was released to 1 billion in 2016. It's hard to pull apart the numbers based on the vague information the 10K but it could mean that they got at most $500 million from transformers in "Other" regions. In the same year their total film revenue was $3.5 billion, so it could mean about 1/7 of their film revenue came from the Chinese release of transformers, which is not an insignificant portion.
