Wednesday’s earnings calls told a tale of two enormous entertainment companies going in starkly different directions.
Warner Bros. Discovery shocked Hollywood with a $10 billion quarterly net loss that included a $9.1 billion write-down on the value of the company’s struggling linear TV assets.
That came in stark contrast to Disney, which just hours earlier touted its latest milestone – a quarterly profit of $47 million for its combined direct-to-consumer business. And its studio segment was saved from potential disaster by the blowout success of Pixar’s “Inside Out 2.”
While Disney seemingly turned a corner in its race to catch streaming leader Netflix, WBD and its beleaguered CEO David Zaslav are staring down the barrel of a much-needed strategic reset — one that could involve selling the company or separating assets into different entities.