Gunnar Wiedenfels

Last year was a massive success for Warner Bros. Discovery’s content – but maybe not so much for its financials.

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.

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.

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 is rushing the launch date of its AVOD streaming service meant to combine WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Discovery’s Discovery+. Combined, WBD networks lost 8% in total Q3 revenue, but the company doubled its streaming ad revenue, giving WBD hope as it smooths out its rocky post-acquisition start.

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. Courting Disaster A California district court judge has scathingly reprimanded Google’s legal team. Google requested to withhold 6,232 of 6,322 documents in a privacy suit brought by Chrome users.  Google “cavalierly” claimed the review was justified but had no justification to support its claim, […]