Naveen Chopra

Woe is linear. Paramount is writing down its cable TV business by $6 billion and laying off 15% of its US workforce in advance of the Skydance merger.

Paramount Global is reeling from shareholder pushback against a pending merger with private equity-backed production company Skydance Media. In the meantime, it’s hoping to impress advertisers with streaming subscriber and advertising growth.

Paramount touted its tailwinds during its Q4 earnings call, including a new partnership with Walmart that gives it access to the retailer’s shopper data.

Paramount is regaining some footing after a less-than-impressive Q2, thanks to a boost in streaming ad revenue and fresh subscriber growth.

Paramount’s subscriber growth is flat following the release of its new bundle offering, which is helping boost the programmer’s streaming revenue.

Paramount’s Q4 finances were bleak. To turn things around, the broadcaster is introducing new streaming bundles and price hikes.

Paramount is just one of many broadcasters juggling its linear (and declining) TV cash cow with a budding DTC streaming biz. Paramount’s total revenue grew 19% year-over-year in Q2 to a total of $7.7 billion. But the growth was primarily attributed to streaming – particularly Paramount+.

Pandora’s active listeners in Q2 declined 2.7% YoY to 76 million, the company reported on its Monday earnings call. That’s down from 78 million active listeners during the same period last year. To bolster its user base, Pandora will refocus its marketing efforts on getting users to sign up for its ad-supported tier and upgrading […]

Despite the wide rollout of its Premium subscription product in April, Pandora is still betting on ads for revenue. Now that Premium has hit the market, Pandora can refocus its efforts and resources on launching new ad products, including programmatic audio, in the back half of the year, said CEO and founder Tim Westergren on […]