Lionsgate still has a library story, but Wednesday does not have the filing receipt the stronger version needs: the accessible PRNewswire release says fourth-quarter revenue was $906.5 million, free cash flow was $190.4 million and trailing 12-month library revenue topped $1 billion for a third straight quarter. [1]

That follows the paper's June 2 account of library cash carrying the post-Starz case and its warning that the balance sheet complicates the library story, but today's useful update is narrower because the investor release and SEC exhibit URLs that would let the paper print the claim from primary filing pages returned blocked pages in this session. [2] [3]

That matters because entertainment finance loves a montage: a billion-dollar library line can sound like a franchise argument, a sale argument and a valuation argument, while the harder post-Starz question is whether library revenue, film obligations, debt, cash flow and future slate spending can be read together. [1]

X will happily make the leap from library to deal thesis, and mainstream trade writing often makes the leap from earnings release to confidence paragraph, but the paper should not. [1]

Until the readable filing appears, the publishable sentence is not that Lionsgate proved the post-Starz case; it is that the case remains tempting and incompletely sourced. [1] [2] [3]

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles