By Will Feuer
Warner Bros. Discovery posted lower fourth-quarter revenue, dragged down by lagging results in its studios and cable networks.
The media conglomerate, which owns cable networks such as TNT and CNN, as well as film studios and the Max streaming platform, reported a fourth-quarter loss of $400 million, or 16 cents a share, compared with a loss of $2.1 billion, or 86 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected a loss of 8 cents a share.
Revenue fell 7% to $10.28 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting $10.34 billion.
In the studios business, revenue fell 17%, while sales fell 9% in the networks segment. In the direct-to-consumer segment, which includes the company’s streaming platforms, revenue rose 3% to $2.53 billion.
Total DTC subscribers in the U.S. and Canada fell to 52 million, from 54.6 million a year earlier. Average revenue per user–often used as a proxy for pricing–rose nearly 8% to $11.65 in the U.S. and Canada from a year earlier.
Free cash flow rose 33% to $3.31 billion in the quarter, above the $2.5 billion that analysts had expected.
Write to Will Feuer at Will.Feuer@wsj.com