WBD - Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (WBD) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-05-09 12:02:07 ET
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD)
Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call
May 9, 2024 08:00 a.m. ET
Company Participants
David Zaslav - President, Chief Executive Officer
Gunnar Wiedenfels - Chief Financial Officer
JB Perrette - CEO and President, Global Streaming and Games.
Andrew Slabin - Executive Vice President, Global Investor Strategy
Conference Call Participants
Bryan Kraft - Deutsche Bank
Kutgun Maral - Evercore ISI
Jessica Reif Ehrlich - BOA Securities
David Joyce - Seaport Research Partners
Kannan Venkateshwar - Barclays
Rich Greenfield - LightShed Partners
Steven Cahall - Wells Fargo
Presentation
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Warner Bros. Discovery First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. Additionally, please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Andrew Slabin, Executive Vice President, Global Investor Strategy. Sir, you may begin.
Andrew Slabin
Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Warner Bros. Discovery's Q1 Earnings Call. Joining me today is David Zaslav, President and Chief Executive Officer; Gunnar Wiedenfels, Chief Financial Officer; and JB Perrette, CEO and President, Global Streaming and Games.
Today's presentation will include forward-looking statements that we make pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements may include comments regarding the company's future business plans, prospects and financial performance and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations.
For additional information on factors that could affect these expectations, please see the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and its reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K.
With that, I'd like to turn the call over to David.
David Zaslav
Hello, everyone. And thank you for joining us. As we kicked off the New Year, our focus was simple. To continue building this company for the future, recognizing that it's not business as usual, and that we are transforming ourselves for what's next in an industry undergoing tremendous disruption, largely driven by technological innovation impacting consumer behavior, and we're embracing that innovation here at Warner Bros. Discovery, with bold and courageous decision making.
To that end, we've had a productive start to the year, and we are pleased to see positive momentum building in several critical areas. Most notably, Max is gaining subscriber traction in all regions, adding 2 million subs this quarter with our total Direct-to-Consumer subscriber count nearing the 100 million mark, and while our U.S. subs will be impacted by some seasonality, particularly related to sports in Q2, we're on track for continued robust international growth this quarter and new subscriber highs through the remainder of the year.
We're also gaining ground in ad sales with an acceleration in Direct-to-Consumer and sequential improvement in linear this quarter, helped in part by a record March Madness Men's Basketball tournament and steadier overall ratings. ...
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript