4TH DOWN

TRADITIONAL MEDIA'S ROUGH ROAD

Happy Thursday War & Peaceniks! Let’s report!

It’s been a wIld and wooly earnings season - many ups, downs and sideways to track.

Paramount reported earnings yesterday, and they did disappoint. The house of Redstone missed on top-line revenue projections - reporting advertising revenues down 15% in 4Q and 13% for the year. And, while they did show a surprise pop in 4Q operating income, operating income for the year dropped like a stone, swinging from $2.3 billion in profit the previous year, to a loss in 2023. The one bright spot for Paramount was streaming, which grew revenues by 37%, but is still a ways off from profitability.

This speaks to a trend that flowed across all the players in the Media Universe this earnings season: Most of the larger Media and Tech companies made substantial overhead cuts in 2023, but while the tech players (Google, Roku, Meta, Netflix, Amazon) were able to grow revenues and net income post cuts, for the traditional players (Disco Bros, Paramount, FOX, Dis…