There was a time, not so long ago, when the second quarter meant the N.B.A. playoffs for Turner Sports, and Turner Sports meant a great deal of advertising money for what is now Warner Bros. Discovery. That time has passed.
The company reported a 22 percent decline in advertising revenue for the quarter, to $1.7 billion, with the absence of professional basketball accounting for roughly 20 percentage points of that drop all by itself. (The league's games now appear on NBC, Amazon and ESPN, a reshuffling that left Turner's long relationship with the sport on the cutting-room floor after more than four decades.)
Domestic linear audiences fell 17 percent across the company's networks, a figure that has become familiar enough in quarterly reports to qualify as something approaching a tradition.
The broadcast of the N.C.A.A. tournament's Final Four and championship game offered some consolation, though the company did not specify how much.
Streaming advertising, which remains a modest contributor to the overall business, rose 9 percent, to $306 million. Total streaming revenue climbed 10 percent, to $3.1 billion, continuing a pattern in which the streaming division is asked to compensate for declines elsewhere — a burden it is not yet large enough to shoulder comfortably.
Company-wide revenue fell 12 percent, and net income dropped 91 percent, to $149 million, a figure that makes the 2 percent rise in the stock price during midday trading seem either optimistic or forgetful.
Meanwhile, a 12-state antitrust lawsuit seeking to block the proposed Paramount-Skydance transaction — which would reshape the competitive landscape considerably — now has a trial date of March 2027. Paramount has agreed not to close the deal until a ruling or June 1, 2027.
Which means Warner Bros. Discovery has time to watch and wait, something the company has been doing quite a lot of lately.
Original story published in MediaPost: "WBD Q2: 22% Ad Decline, Streaming Up 10%"