• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 67 minutes ago

Despite all its ups and downs, the entire media industry continues to be strong in its most recent third-quarter 2025 reporting period -- even with comparisons to recent key financial data.

“Beneath these comps, the industry remains healthy,” writes Laurent Yoon, media analyst for Bernstein Research.

“On a seasonal basis, the third quarter is typically the slowest quarter of the year for media revenue, yet total industry revenue grew sequentially in 3Q25 breaking historical trends similar to last year however without the benefit of one time events like the Olympics.”

That comes to around $54 billion in revenue for the third-quarter period.

While the valuable third-quarter period of 2024 was a bit higher -- around $55 billion, according to Bernstein Research -- this came via one-time events that occur every four years: the Summer Olympics (Paris) and a Presidential election season.

Media companies covered in this report include Netflix, Walt Disney, Fox Corp., Comcast Corp., Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance.

More broadly speaking, the good news, according to Yoon, is that the third quarter is typically a very slow-moving period.

For its part, Netflix -- the biggest media performer in terms of overall financial data gains in recent years -- was unaffected by the results of the Olympics and political comparison. It continued to post double-digit-percentage gains -- 17% in revenue - -- largely from subscriptions, posting $11.5 billion in the period of that $55 billion.

In addition, the entire health of the media business profitability, and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) remain strong.

The third-quarter period averaged an EBITDA profit margin of 19% for the industry.

Even taking out Netflix, a major strong media performer, over the last few years, Yoon, says the average EBITDA is still around 13% to 16% over the last two years -- “even as linear businesses continue to compress.”

Of course, this isn’t going to last too much longer, as all media analysts and senior media executives have warned.

This is not to say that the business is smooth. Consolidation appears to be gaining momentum, now with three major companies -- Paramount Skydance, Comcast Corp. and Netflix -- making official bids to buy Warner Bros Discovery.

Will this change that financial data in quarterly financial periods to come?