WBD Says Soft Ad Market Hit Revenue in Q1

Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) U.S. direct-to-consumer (DTC) business "is no longer a bleeder" and should turn a profit this year, CEO David Zaslav said Friday as the company announced Q1 results. He said its Max streaming service combining HBO Max and Discovery+ offerings will launch May 23 in the U.S., with Latin America to follow later in the year and Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa in 2024. He said WBD plans to expand Max's offerings with news and sports. WBD said it added 1.6 million DTC subscribers worldwide in the quarter. Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said the company's DTC business should generate at least $1 billion in profitability in 2025. He said a lot of the roughly 4 million overlapping HBO Max/Discovery+ subscribers will likely drop Discovery+ in the first few months of the Max launch, though the company will keep Discovery+ going as a stand-alone product. WBD said revenue for the quarter was $10.7 billion, down 6% year over year on a pro forma basis. Zaslav said a soft advertising market hurt revenue. Paramount Global similarly told investors last week a soft ad market was hurting revenue (see 2305040072).