David Zaslav

Late last week, Netflix walked away from plans to acquire Warner Bros., clearing the way for Paramount Skydance to scoop up the whole company with its hostile takeover bid.

Before Warner Bros. Discovery’s Q3 earnings call even began on Thursday, the investor relations team made it clear that leadership did not want to talk about the company currently trying to sell parts of itself to potential bidders.

Total revenue for the quarter was $9.8 billion, up only 1% year-over-year from the last Q2 quarter total of $9.7 billion – which is modest, but at least in line with company expectations.

For CTV advertisers, Warner Bros. Discovery’s first earnings report of the 2025 fiscal year was a bit of a mixed bag.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s overall ad revenue dropped 7% last year. Its survival depends on its streaming service, Max, its lifeline in the intensifying streaming wars.

WBD’s overall revenue fell 5% year-over-year to $9.7 billion, continuing a recent decline and missing investor expectations, according to its earnings report on Wednesday. WBD shares dropped 8% during after-hours trading.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) broke the trend of streaming publishers reporting positive gains last quarter. But it’s slowly gaining subscribers, and expects bundling and global expansion to help speed up traction for its streaming service, Max.

Warner Bros. Discovery is in a tight spot with double-digit TV ad revenue declines – and its core streaming service, Max, hasn’t picked up the slack … yet.

TV programmers have been fighting against macroeconomic constraints and the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, both of which reduced ad revenue growth over the course of this year. Now, programmers are starting to recover some of their losses.

Warner Bros. Discovery continues to lose subscribers to a lack of original content (for which it blames the Hollywood actors’ strike). But streaming advertising revenue, which is up 29% YOY, represents a glimmer of hope.

Warner Bros. Discovery lost 1.8 million global streaming subscribers this quarter, but streaming ad revenue is up 25% YOY, thanks to the merged company’s new streaming service, Max.

Warner Bros. Discovery announced the birth of its new streaming service, Max, combining HBO Max and Discovery+ content offerings. Starting May 23, HBO Max will be no more – but Discovery+ gets to also remain a standalone app.

Warner Bros. and Discovery insist their marriage is working. Although they’ve had to go through a little, shall we say, counseling.

On Tuesday, Warner Bros. Discovery held its first quarterly earnings report as Warner Media and Discovery newlyweds. The merger has only been closed for hardly two weeks, but the combined company is revving up for this year’s upfronts. Discovery, for one, reported a 5% YOY increase in ad revenue and 13% YOY growth in total revenue. The duo hopes to keep up the momentum by leaning into streaming with original content production.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Buy What You Know Shopify and Roku announced a partnership to bring a Roku app for CTV ad creation and campaign management to the dashboard of all Shopify merchants. The idea is to crack into the $16.4 billion that small and medium-sized businesses spend […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Big Discovery Fresh off the news that it will merge with WarnerMedia next year to create a media behemoth, Discovery Inc. reported powerhouse earnings in Q2. Discovery ended Q2 with 17 million direct-to-consumer subscribers, up from 11 million last quarter, netting the company $400 […]