Paramount Global‘s third quarter earnings report has been released, and while the results topped analysts’ estimates, there’s a unsettling picture coming to light with respect to the financial performance of its linear television properties.
For the three-month period ending September 30, TV Media revenue dipped by 6%, to $4.298 billion from $4.567 billion.
This was only slightly offset by the 10% growth seen at Paramount’s D2C unit, with dollars rising to $1.86 billion from $1.692 billion.
With Skydance Media’s purchase of Paramount Global weaving its way through the regulatory process — one that theoretically will be easier once the Trump Administration comes into power in January 2025 — the C-Suite will need to look at the core troubles facing CBS’s broadcast stations, the CBS Television Network, and cable television channels. Political advertising did its role in softening the dip in dollars, but the fact a year-over-year revenue decline was seen is potentially troubling for David Ellison and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, who will serve as President of Paramount. That is expected to happen in the first half of 2025.
Paramount explained the Q3 revenue decline for TV media as a result of lower affiliate revenue and “fluctuations in licensing revenue.”
Breaking down the Q3 performance, Advertising dollars dropped to $1.67 billion from $1.70 billion, as Affiliate and Subscription revenue fell to $1.87 billion from just over $2 billion.
Although expenses were trimmed to $3.36 billion from $3.42 billion, adjusted OIBDA was down to $936 million from $1.15 billion.
Meanwhile, the Filmed Entertainment business is particularly soft for Paramount, with revenue dropping to $590 million from $891 million. The number and timing of releases impacted the results.
