Warner Bros Discovery's Max Now Has Nearly 100 Million Subscribers, Streaming Profit Up

Warner Bros. Discovery has reported results for the quarter that ended March 31 with Q1 total revenues totaling $9.95 billion. Global streaming subscribers were at 99.6 million at the end of Q1, up 2 million in Q4.

The company is the combination of Discovery, Inc. and AT&T's former WarnerMedia wing, and is just over two years old. The merging created a colossal pile of debt having WBD pay down $1.1 billion of it in Q1 2024 with $43.2 billion remaining. It also created some controversy in how some programming was being marketed towards which demos.

“We are pleased with our progress in the first quarter as evidenced by strong results in important KPIs. We delivered meaningful growth in our streaming business with a nice acceleration in ad sales, generating nearly $90 million in positive EBITDA for the quarter," David Zaslav, President and CEO of WBD said in a statement.

"We will soon be rolling out Max to 29 countries across Europe, and the content lineup for Max over the coming year is one of our strongest ever. Warner Bros Pictures also had a strong start to the year as the first studio to reach $1 billion in both overseas and global box office, and they have a great slate in the works. Importantly, we once again delivered strong free cash flow, even in our seasonally weakest FCF quarter. We continue to make bold moves to transform our company for the future as we position ourselves to take full advantage of the opportunities ahead."

It's just the second continuous quarter of a return to direct-to-consumer (DTC) subscriber growth after three straight quarters of losses. The combination of HBO Max and Discovery+ was bound to devour some subscriptions early on and it sure did.

What will be interesting to see is what happens when WBD, Fox, and Disney launch their supposed joint streaming service starting this summer.