Warner Bros. Discovery’s revenue fell short of expectations in Q4 as the company lost more than $2 billion on linear, streaming, & studio.
Warner Bros. Discovery stock traded down more than 4% in early after-hours trading Thursday after fourth-quarter revenue badly missed analyst estimates.
Fourth-quarter revenue came in at $11.1 billion — well short of the $11.36 billion estimates — while quarterly losses came in at a total of $2.1 billion, or 86 cents per share. In a cool and reduced advertising market, flagship channels within WBD’s TV network such as TNT, TBS, and Discovery dipped 6% in revenue to roughly $5.5 billion.
Last year’s Warner Brothers-Discovery merger led to a mountain of debt, $45.5 billion of it compared to an estimated $3.9 billion of cash on hand. Reducing debt, cutting down costs, and further emphasizing streaming will be major company priorities in the coming fiscal year.
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“With the major restructuring decisions behind us, this year we are focused on building and growing our businesses for the future, and we’re off to a great start,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said in the company’s earnings release.
Streaming revenue was up 6% in Q4, with an add of 1.1 million subscribers on its HBO Max and Discovery+ platforms. While streaming lost the company $217 million in the quarter, that’s $511 million less than in the previous year-over-year period. Lower TV licensing deals and fewer theatrical releases, including the box office bomb Black Adam, which lost a reported $50-100 million, contributed to a 23% decrease in its studio revenue.
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