• by Wayne Friedman , 6 hours ago

The absence of the NBA games -- and general cord-cutting -- knocked down Warner Bros. Discovery's first-quarter advertising revenue year-over-year by 8% to $1.85 billion.

Global linear networks continue to suffer worse declines -- contributing most of the company-wide advertising decline overall -- down 12% to $1.57 billion.

One positive result was a 19% hike in streaming advertising -- although it is a small piece of advertising business for the company, at $284 million.

Distribution revenue sank 8% to $2.37 billion, also due to continued cord-cutting.

While streaming advertising still has a long way to go to catch linear TV networks, streaming distribution revenues (consumer subscriptions business) is now higher than linear TV distribution revenues -- $2.53 billion (up 7% year-over-year) versus $2.37 million (down 8%).

Streaming subscribers grew approximately 15% to 20% globally -- rising past management estimates to reach 140 million global subscriptions, according to Madison and Wall, which estimates that “domestic growth was flat or negative while international growth remained near 20%.”

WBD no longer discloses data changes for subscribers.

WBD’s studio business -- movie theater and content sales -- soared 31% to $3.1 billion. Although studio production contributed heavily to HBO Max including movies, WBD also plans to increase movie theater releases to 14 this year (from 11 a year ago), to 18 in 2027.

A shareholder letter cautioned that next quarter will be a difficult one for theatrical movies -- with tough comparisons likely. A year ago in the second quarter, there were soaring blockbuster results from ”A Minecraft Movie," "Sinners," and "Final Destination: Bloodlines."

Still, at the end of the year and then into 2027, major theatrical launches are set for “Dune Part 3,” “Supergirl”, “The Batman Part 2” and “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.”

The company also give major credit to consistent selling of content for a wide-range number of global networks and platforms, averaging over $5 billion in annual revenues.