After That $9 Billion Black Eye… Warner Bros. Discovery Posts a Historic 7.2 Million New Subs

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) just pulled off a comeback that even they couldn’t have scripted better. Back in August, this media conglomerate was down bad (as the teenagers would say) like, “trading at a six-buck basement” bad—after taking a $9.1 billion write-down. 

Why? Because they missed Wall Street forecasts, ad revenue was tanking faster than the ratings to Arnold Swcharzenager’s version of “The Apprentice,” (and to make matters worse they lost their NBA rights). It was not great. But today? Cue the triumphant music, because WBD dropped news that Max, their streaming platform, added a historic 7.2 million subscribers last quarter. (For context, that’s more people than showed up for “The Flash” in theaters).

Max now has 110.5 million subscribers, its biggest quarterly bump since they launched in 2020. Not to brag (okay, totally to brag), but that subscriber growth outshines even the competition’s Olympics-fueled gains—looking at you, Peacock. And what’s crazy is this lift came from their international rollout. Looks like WBD’s figured out that when traditional TV is going down in flames, you’d better have a lifeboat (and in this case, Max is the Titanic’s orchestra that just keeps playing).

Numberswise, WBD’s streaming revenue was up 8% year-over-year, hitting $2.63 billion. Not only are more people signing up, but ads are somehow still pulling in cash, which tells you that, yes, some people will watch anything with the word “exclusive” printed on it. But while streaming is soaring, the rest of the business is a dumpster fire. The traditional TV networks brought in 3% more revenue (probably the only growth left in cable TV). And their studios? Well, revenue dropped 17%, with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and “Twisters” failing to keep up with last year’s “Barbie” money machine. (Are we really shocked that Glen Powell in a cowboy hat couldn’t compete with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling wearing pink?)

CEO David Zaslav is still out here (as in zoom calls) selling his “we’re prepping for the future” story, which is CEO code for “it’s going to get a lot worse before it maybe, kind of, possibly gets better.” But hey, he’s pinning his hopes on Max’s subscriber growth and (fingers crossed behind their back) the company’s plan to cut costs wherever possible—unless it’s laying off more staff, in which case he’s all in. Zaslav says they’re making “meaningful progress” toward 2025 goals, which has us all wondering: will the streaming gains be enough to offset linear TV’s slow, painful death? (Skeptics say, “Yeah, sure, and pigs might fly.”)

Wall Street’s still not buying it, though. The stock’s lingering in the $7–$8 range, and analysts like Jessica Reif Erlich are practically begging WBD to think about selling off some assets. Because, let’s be real, without the NBA deal, this thing’s like an aging and chubby Shaquille O’Neal playing for the Celtics, desperately trying to stay relevant. 

And sure, they’ve inked a few other sports deals—college basketball, NASCAR, the French Open—but none of these are quite patching the NBA-sized crater in their balance sheet. That said, we’ll give them their flowers for today’s good news (even though Warner Bros stock is down 16% on the year).

PS: If watching Warner Bros. claw its way back from the abyss gave you a hint of FOMO, it might be time to stop warming the bench and actually get in the game. Warner’s subscriber pop? Just a taste of the chaos. Our last alert (Friday) soared a wild 116% jump in minutes—and yeah, we’ve been dropping at least one 100%+ move every single week on average since we launched. Click here to join Stocks.News Premium before the next alert drops.

Stock.News does not have positions in companies mentioned.