Warner Bros. Discovery Sees $2.1 Billion Loss in Q4 After Big Writedown; Ad Sales Tumble
variety.comSubmitted by Neo2199 t3_11a9aao in television
Neo2199 OP t1_j9qlj2o wrote
> The New York owner of the TNT and TBS cable networks, the HBO Max streaming service and the Warner Bros. production studio reported a net loss of $2.1 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter after the company wrote down $1.85 billion in assets and faced nearly $1.2 billion in restructuring expenses.
> Revenue fell 9%, excluding the results of foreign exchange, and the company saw ad sales decrease 14% as its TV networks, even as it worked to add subscribers to its HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming outlets.
WordsAreSomething t1_j9qowvw wrote
The ad sales decreasing makes sense considering they absolutely gutted stuff like TNT and TBS. Harder to sell ads on reruns of things. It's been weird to see them advertise stuff like Silicon Valley on TBS so hard like it is a new show and won't just be a watered down rerun of what people that want to have already seen.
Jaguarluffy t1_j9qsuz9 wrote
no - its harder to sell ads when cable tv is dying - literally every single tv company is facing the same problem
WordsAreSomething t1_j9qvqv0 wrote
It's still pretty easy to sell ads on cable for things that people watch though.
Jaguarluffy t1_j9qxs13 wrote
yes - but its a far smaller pool so advertisers are giving you far less money - unless you somehow find better ways to sell ads for streaming the struggle will continue
reddig33 t1_j9qus9x wrote
Why not both?
AgentElman t1_j9qynqr wrote
Except that cable companies are doing better than streaming.
Only Netflix makes money streaming. Everyone else is losing huge amounts of money.
formicatile t1_j9s43rd wrote
Which cable companies?
aw-un t1_j9rt8qm wrote
Hulu makes money
formicatile t1_j9s4cgt wrote
Does it?
aw-un t1_j9s561w wrote
formicatile t1_j9s7112 wrote
> Despite guidance from Disney that Hulu won't achieve profitability until 2023, Moffett estimates the that the streaming service has been profitable for the last two quarters
Doesn’t sound that cut and dry
Carl_Spakler t1_j9ss42i wrote
> Netflix makes money streaming
The company runs a negative cash flow business model.
It's borrowing huge amounts for content production that need to be paid back
yeroii t1_j9stbqj wrote
They report profits and revenue tho. They do make money.
Carl_Spakler t1_j9sure7 wrote
they play with the numbers bro
vitorgrs t1_j9rvz6u wrote
And Zaslav just loves cable tv... My impression is that he will stay as CEO for 3 or so years and leaves...
Dear-Attempt-2182 t1_j9rigqm wrote
"Harder to sell ads on reruns of things."
Might legitimately be a new idea for a guy whose success was in the old broadcast network and recent unscripted cable models. Both of which essentially ran on the idea that people turn on a channel and will keep it on all evening, even if lots of the night is reruns.
In this call, he also kept playing up how Discovery+ users will stay subscribed no matter what, and HBO Max subscribers will cancel between shows... so obviously, the answer is to make HBO Max more Discovery+-like
Radulno t1_j9ss322 wrote
I'm actually not sure. We know people re-watch a lot their favorite shows on streaming too and it's probably the same on cable TV. Sure it's better to have a new hit but between a new show that may very well fail (most do) and a proven old show that people like and re-watch (like a sitcom), not sure which will be the best for ads.
jreed66 t1_j9uto7t wrote
It would be interesting to see if advertising is even effective when people are watching old shows in the background. I might have 8 episodes of the office on while I do other things, but that doesn't mean I actually paid attention for more than 15-20 minutes.
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