Continued weakness in the television advertising market was a setback in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings. On the bright side: streaming service Max is turning a profit.
Despite turning a profit on its streaming business, Warner Bros. Discovery shares were battered Friday morning after the company failed to hit its estimates on revenue and posted a larger-than-expected loss in the fourth quarter.
WBD saw its stock price drop as much as 13% after the company reported a loss of $400 million, or 16 cents a share. That was an improvement over the loss of $2.1 billion or 86 cents a share during the same period a year ago, but wider than the 6-cents-a-share loss analysts had expected.
Revenues came in at $10.3 billion, down 7% compared to the same period a year ago. Analysts had predicted revenue of $10.4 billion.
“This business is not without its challenges,” Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav said during an earnings call. “We continue to face the impacts of ongoing disruption in the pay TV ecosystem and a dislocated, linear advertising ecosystem.
