• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Paramount Skydance advertising revenues declined 3% to $2.4 billion in the first quarter of 2026 -- slightly outperforming analysts' estimates, with subscription/affiliate fee business up by roughly the same rate -- 3.1% to $3.5 billion.

Traditional TV advertising was down 6% to $1.9 billion, with streaming ads 9% higher to $517 million. 

The company says: “Paramount+ advertising revenue remains strong, digital monetization is improving sequentially across the portfolio, and our programmatic demand pipeline heading into Q2 is encouraging.”

Streaming subscriptions revenue grew 12% to $1.9 billion, with TV affiliate/subscription slipping 6% to $1.6 billion.

More importantly, company-wide adjusted cash flow (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) overdelivered on industry estimates -- rising nearly 60% to $1.2 billion from the year ago period. 

And while free cash flow declined --- down 22% to $96 million -- it greatly exceeded projections. Consensus analysts' estimates predicted a negative free cash flow of $296 million. 

Overall revenue grew 2% year-over-year to $7.35 billion.

Looking at key direct-to-consumer business, revenue was up 11% to $2.4 billion. Paramount+ added 700,000 subscribers -- and 1.9 million when excluding the subscriber loss of an international bundling deal. The company now says the popular "Landman" is now the most-watched series in Paramount+ history. 

Investors gave the company’s shares an initial 4% boost in after-market Monday trading, to eventually land at $11.30.

While much of this was expected, Madison and Wall had some concerns -- especially with regard to content spend, which was down 5.2% following a 8.5% drop in the fourth quarter of 2025.

“There is some relationship between share of content investment and share of advertising revenue,” according to the analyst note. As a result, “Paramount’s weaker ad sales performance should not be surprising.” 

It adds: “In a market increasingly shaped by sports, premium video, and streaming scale, lower relative content investment can make it harder to compete for ad budgets.”