Paramount Global's streaming grows, TV Ad revenue declines by 10% in Q2 2023

The second quarter of 2023 saw the media company’s streaming service, Paramount+, subscribers marginally go up to 61 million. 

The second quarter of 2023 turned out to be profitable for Paramount Global as its investment in streaming content continued to attract new subscribers and growth.

Paramount Global reached 61 million Paramount+ streaming subscribers worldwide in the second quarter of 2023. Subscribers stood at 60 million in the same quarter last year. It reported second-quarter revenue of $7.62 billion. Operating losses stood at $299 million.

The financial loss for the proprietor of CBS, Nickelodeon, and the Paramount movie studio, was triggered by a 10% decrease in advertising revenue across its diverse television networks in Q2. TV ad revenue had dropped by 11% the previous quarter and 7% in the fourth quarter of 2022.

However, subscription revenue surged by 47% to more than $1.2 billion, driven by subscriber growth on Paramount+, which added 0.7M subscribers in the quarter reaching 61M in total.

In terms of streaming, Paramount disclosed a quarterly loss of $424 million. This is a decrease from the previous quarter's $511 million and a slight reduction from the $445 million of a year ago. Subscription earnings saw a 21 percent upsurge year-on-year, totaling $1.2 billion. This surge was attributed to the expansion of the subscriber base in comparison to the same period in 2022, as well as an expansion in digital advertising initiatives.

Paramount Global mentioned that the money they made from streaming, which is not as much as what they earn from movies or TV shows, increased by 40%. They mentioned this was because more ads were shown on Pluto and Paramount+ and more people subscribed to Pluto.

Income within the filmed entertainment sector experienced a 39 percent decline on a year-over-year basis, resulting in a total of $831 million.

Paramount also announced its decision to divest its book-publishing arm, Simon & Schuster, to the investment firm KKR for a sum of $1.62 billion. The intention behind this sale is to utilize the generated funds to reduce the company's existing debt.