Paramount Global Narrows Streaming Q2 Loss But Grapples With TV Ad Declines

Brian Steinberg
·2 min read

Tom Cruise helped Paramount Global’s operations do good business last year, but he wasn’t able to lend a similar boost in the second quarter of 2023.

The New York owner of CBS, Nickelodeon and the Paramount movie studio posted a second-quarter loss after ad revenue at its various TV networks sunk 10% and the company proved unable to devise a movie hit on the order of last year’s “Top Gun: Maverick.” Revenue was off 39% at the company’s film operations. Paramount saw a loss of $299 million, or 48 cents per share, in its second quarter. Adjusted for one-time items, earnings came to 10 cents per share.

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The tough results on the company’s linear side came even as it saw robust performance from streaming. Paramount narrowed its direct-to-consumer loss to $424 million in the second quarter, compared to a loss of $445 million in the year-earlier period and a loss of $511 million in the first quarter. Paramount Global said revenue from its streaming operations, smaller than its film or TV business, was up 40%, citing upticks in advertising on Pluto and Paramount+ as well as new subscriptions to the former.

Paramount said it had agreed to sell its Simon & Schuster book-publishing operations to the investment firm KKR for $1.62 billion and planned to use the proceeds to pay down debt.

Executives continued to project improvements in quarters to come, noting that digital advertising was improving and that the company expected to invest more efficiently in streaming in the looming months. TV advertising, however, has proven slower to recovery, according to Naveen Chopra, Paramount’s chief financial officer, in remarks made during a call Monday with investors.

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