Warner Bros Discovery Falls Apart

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Warner Bros Discovery Falls Apart

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24/7 Insights

  • Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (NASDAQ: WBD | WBD Price Prediction) stock has tumbled in the past year.
  • The media giant’s challenge is that it has several problems that it has been unable to solve.

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (NASDAQ: WBD), a merger of AT&T’s media assets and Discovery’s, was supposed to have the assets to make it the industry leader, perhaps even ahead of juggernaut Disney. Instead, the cobbled-together company’s stock has fallen 43% in the past year, compared to a 23% jump in the S&P 500. Even stumbling Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) shares have risen 10% over the same period. Warner Bros. Discovery’s stock reached a 52-week low last week.

The Trouble With Warner Bros. Discovery

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Among other things, the Warner Bros. Discovery’s financial results have been dismal. In the most recently reported quarter, revenue fell 7% to $10 billion. The company lost $966 million. The figures missed expectations.

Streaming is among the most essential keys to the future of big company media stocks. Warner Bros. Discovery beat expectations in terms of subscriber count last quarter. However, the CEO described the hurdle he and his rivals face. David Zaslav said, “The churn is the killer in this business and we’ve been hyper focused on it. Adding bundling has been a big helper to decrease the loss of customers. We need to go at this … in an attack mode.” He has started the effort to keep customers by “bundling” with a deal to marry his Max streaming service with Disney+ and Hulu. The jury won’t be in on how that performs for several quarters.

Another challenge for Warner Bros. Discovery is its cable flagship CNN, whose operating income has been falling. Zaslav is now on his third CEO at the news operations. No matter who runs CNN, MSNBC and Fox News have been tough competition.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s challenge is that it has several problems that it has been unable to solve.

See the 15 Least Popular TV Networks According to Millennials: Ranked.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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