• by Wayne Friedman , November 11, 2024

Paramount Global posted an 18% hike in its direct-to-consumer (D2C) streaming advertising revenue for its third-quarter period to $500 million, according to Bernstein Research analysis -- while posting its first profitable quarter -- at $49 million.

Laurent Yoon, media analyst for Bernstein, writes: “DTC [direct-to-consumer streaming] advertising held up well with more impressions and higher CPM [cost per thousand viewers] year over year.”

Streaming subscription revenue slowed down in the period -- with a 7% year-over-year increase to $1.3 billion. Bernstein says new price increases “will take time to show up in ARPU [average monthly revenue per user].”

Paramount witnessed a 3.4 million U.S. subscriber growth in the period for its DTC businesses. Internationally, global subscribers were up 13% to 71.9 million due to bundling Paramount+ with other streamers.

For the U.S., analysts are concerned that Paramount needs to follow other growing streaming platforms, from legacy TV network-based media companies, and be more aggressive in bundling Paramount+ with other streaming platforms.

For its linear TV businesses, advertising revenue declined 2% to land at $1.6 billion. This was an improvement from a decline of 10% in ad revenue decline for Q2.

The third quarter was partly helped by political advertising and NFL/college football at CBS Television Stations and other platforms.
Political and NFL/college football will also bolster advertising business higher in the fourth quarter period.

Overall linear TV media revenue was down 6% to $4.3 billion. Total streaming revenue was up 10% to $1.9 billion.