Barbie wielded a lot of box-office power this year, raking in over a billion dollars at the global box office and making history as Warner Bros.’ highest-grossing film of all time. But one monster hit wasn’t enough to bring Warner Bros. Discovery into the realm of profitability, according to today’s company earnings call.
As Variety and other sources reported, Warner Bros. Discovery is still saddled with debt as a result of its recent merger, which this year brought about the rebrand of its streaming service as Max. On top of that, even Barbie’s candy-coloured success couldn’t make up for “a 12% decline in advertising at its portfolio of TV networks,” chalked up to “a soft market for ad spending” as well as a drop in subscribers.
The trade noted, “Like its rivals in the media sector, Warner Bros. Discovery is trying to build new products for streamers while managing the decline of some of its biggest assets, which include the TNT and TBS cable networks,” and noted “streaming proved a bright spot during the period, with direct-to-consumer revenue up 5% thanks to price increases and new partnerships, while ad revenue rose a whopping 30%, as advertisers start moving dollars to chase broadband audiences.” Despite that, the company’s total number of subscribers is down by 700,000 to 95.1 million (it had 95.8 million at the end of Q2)—possibly due in part to the fact that Max now contains most of the content from Discovery+, cutting down on customers who might’ve been subscribing to Discovery+ separately; it still exists as a standalone streamer.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s earnings press release touted the success of its streaming news service CNN Max, as well as the Bleacher Report-branded add-on tier now available on Max. And, some good news for genre fans: the release also praised The Nun II, which earned more than $US250 million globally and bolstered The Conjuring Universe’s status as the world’s highest-grossing horror franchise.