The numbers
3.4 Million — The variety of subscribers Warner Bros. Discovery added in Q2, bringing the corporate to a complete of 125.7 million.
$293 million — Streaming income for WBD, which elevated 8%.
$9.8 billion — WBD’s whole income, which was up from the earlier 12 months.
+17% — The proportion that promoting revenues elevated.
The watercooler discuss
In the course of the Q&A portion of Warner Bros. Discovery’s earnings name on Thursday, WBD’s chief monetary officer Gunnar Wiedenfels responded to a query about how the corporate would deal with advert gross sales amid its beforehand introduced company break up. Wiedenfels stated promoting gross sales have been one of many areas the place there’s “important synergy,” and the corporate checked out it onerous when it contemplated the separation, concluding (as acknowledged publicly earlier than) that they’re going to “proceed to go to the market as enterprise as traditional.”
Wiedenfels added that nothing goes to vary from an advertiser’s perspective, and that they’re working via the method to set that up internally.
Concerning the upfront, Wiedenfels famous that the corporate “clearly had some issues” as a result of macroeconomic and geopolitical local weather heading into this 12 months. Nevertheless, the market has “held up effectively,” based on the chief. Costs are up throughout all classes, particularly within the sports activities class. In the meantime, on the digital aspect, he stated there was some “worth strain,” although the corporate has been capable of preserve a “very robust” worth premium for the standard of stock they’re delivering. The exec reiterated that the corporate is proud of the result.
Key quote
“We’re bringing innovation to information, sports activities, and unscripted programming as we work to optimize our international networks. All of the whereas, we dramatically delevered our stability sheet from over 5 occasions web leverage to three.3 occasions now—the bottom since our merger closed. As we proceed to navigate generational disruption and transfer ahead with splitting into two impartial, publicly-traded corporations in 2026, our present momentum will assist place each future organizations for long-term success,” David Zaslav, CEO of WBD, stated throughout the earnings name.
