Warner Bros. Discovery hit a financial milestone in its streaming efforts with the company reporting its first annual profit for its direct-to-consumer streaming segment in its 2023 financial results.
For Q4, WBD reported a $55 million loss in EBITDA (earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization), but reported a $103 million in profits for the full 2023 financial results.
During Q4, domestic DTC subs fell from 52.6 million in Q3 to 52 million in Q4 but global DTC subs increased from 95.9 million to 97.7 million.
“The top priority for us has been building Max, our streaming service,” WBD president and CEO Zaslav said in the Q4 earnings call with analysts. “We fought hard to get Max to be profitable last year [in 2023]. We are now committed to driving profitable top line growth. And while it's still early innings, we feel good about the trajectory we were on and are on track to achieve our guidance of $1 billion in EBITDA in 2025.”
“Our streaming team has made the turn,” added CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels. “The D2C segment generated approximately $100 million of positive EBITDA, a $2.2 billion improvement year-over-year on a pro forma basis, well ahead of our targets.”
