Warner Bros. Discovery Warns of Linear Ad Woes

Streaming advertising is doing well, but the linear ad market in the second half of 2023 has been "disappointing," with no rebound immediately in sight, Warner Bros. Discover (WBD) Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said Wednesday as the company announced Q3 financial results. Also outside the company's control is the ongoing Screen Actors Guild strike, which helped result in "one of our lightest original content schedules in years," which in turn affected Q3 streaming subscriber numbers, CEO David Zaslav said. Also hurting streaming sub numbers were declines in the Discovery+ subscriber base due to its being incorporated into Max. WBD stock closed for the day at $9.40, down 19%. "We made a last and final offer" that met most of the actors' union goals, Zaslav said. He said WBD will launch Max in Latin America in Q1, to be followed by launches in the Nordics, Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe in the spring, with further global expansion over the next two to three years. Wiedenfels was bullish on the Charter Communications/Disney distribution deal reached in September (see 2309110034). "You can imagine a world where we're redoing our deals" where Max is available to cable subscribers, he said. "it created potentially a very interesting bridge to more scale, lower churn and more stability to linear."