Advanced Television

WBD: Streaming bright spot among losses

May 5, 2023

Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has reported its Q1 financial results for the quarter ended March 31st 2023. Amid falling revenue and increased losses it has reported a $50 million (€45.3m) operating profit in streaming with nearly 97 million subscribers worldwide.

David Zaslav, President and Chief Executive Officer of WBD, commented: “It is an important time for Warner Bros Discovery. We’ve come through some major restructurings and have repositioned our businesses with greater precision and focus. And we see a number of positive proof points emerging, with DTC perhaps the most prominent. We made a meaningful turn this quarter with $50 million in segment EBITDA and 1.6 million net adds, and we feel great about the trajectory we are on. In fact, we now expect our US DTC business to be profitable for 2023 – a year ahead of our guidance. Even in today’s challenging marketplace, we are positioned to drive free cash flow and deleverage our balance sheet, and we remain confident in our strategy and ability to achieve our financial targets.”Q1 Financial Summary & Operational Highlights:

  • Q1 total revenues were $10.7 billion. Revenues decreased 5 per cent ex-FX, or decreased 3 per cent ex-FX excluding the impact of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, compared to the prior year quarter, on a combined basis. 
  • Global DTC subscribers increased 1.6 million to 97.6 million at the end of Q1 vs 96.1 million subscribers at the end of Q4. 
  • In Q1, WBD was the #1 most-watched Total TV linear portfolio among P25-54 viewers, driven by the broadcast of the NCAA March Madness tournament, and had 6 of the top 10 cable networks in Prime. 
  • Celebrated CNN’s first ever Oscar with Navalny winning best documentary feature film. 
  • The Q1 launch of Hogwarts Legacy was the largest release of all time for Warner Bros Games and is the best selling game year-to-date with over $1 billion in retail sales.

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