WBD Reports Q1 2024 Earnings

May 18, 2024

WBD reported earnings on May 9th.  Revenue and EBITDA missed expectations but global DTC subscribers of 99.6MM beat consensus expectations of 98.9MM. On the positive side, WBD continues to pay down debt aggressively. During the quarter, the company repaid $1.1BN of debt and ended the quarter with $43.2BN of gross debt and a net leverage ratio of 4.1x. WBD announced that it will be bundling its Ad-Lite or Ad-Free Max with Disney+ and Hulu. Management believes this will drive incremental growth and decrease churn. This quarter was quite messy and didn’t offer much inspiration. What was interesting is the stock actually performed quite well despite disappointing results. This suggests that the stock is quite washed out and could be due for a short-term rally.