Streaming Was A Bright Spot For Warner Bros. Discovery’s Mixed Quarter
For CTV advertisers, Warner Bros. Discovery’s first earnings report of the 2025 fiscal year was a bit of a mixed bag.
For CTV advertisers, Warner Bros. Discovery’s first earnings report of the 2025 fiscal year was a bit of a mixed bag.
Warner Bros. Discovery officially launched OpenPath last week, with the goal of driving demand for its news sites’ display inventory. But for now, CTV is not part of the integration.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s overall ad revenue dropped 7% last year. Its survival depends on its streaming service, Max, its lifeline in the intensifying streaming wars.
Disney redirects subscribers to its site to avoid Apple’s App Store fee; ad tech IPOs are in a lull, but the tech companies that are going public rely on ads for growth; and a Democratic PAC spent $30 million on Spanish-language ads.
Airbnb gets one step closer to launching a retail media biz; Google shakes up its ad tech executive team; and streamers struggle to balance ad and subscriber revenues.
In today’s newsletter: How membership bundles are creating new forms of consumer-facing partnerships; typically unflappable platforms leap to action when billionaires are harmed by bad ads; and X’s GARM lawsuit helped politicize brand safety.
WBD’s overall revenue fell 5% year-over-year to $9.7 billion, continuing a recent decline and missing investor expectations, according to its earnings report on Wednesday. WBD shares dropped 8% during after-hours trading.
In today’s newsletter: US rules Google has a monopoly in search, but not search ads; Nvidia’s unreleased AI has been scraping online video from YouTube, Netflix and others; and streaming app Max debuts a new personalized home page.
In today’s newsletter: Ampla suspends loans to DTC brands, putting their ad budgets at risk; why Sony is investing in IP rather than a streaming platform; and Netflix will move on from Microsoft in favor of in-house ad tech by 2025.
In today’s newsletter: Companies looking to sell data target the US market; which media companies to bet on at TV upfronts; and generative AI data licensing is the new publisher revenue stream.