Election returns weren’t the only results being announced last week. The parent companies of four Hollywood studios held earnings calls for the third quarter of 2024 providing a snapshot of the current state of the entertainment business. It’s a narrative that can be told in four words; streaming growth, theatrical decline. Keep in mind those results are fluid and tend to change quarter-to-quarter and blockbuster-by-blockbuster. Plus not every studio is as invested in streaming as others (looking at you, Sony Pictures). Of course, given last year’s labor strikes theatrical revenue was forecast to be down, if not soft. What follows is a rundown of the reported financials for the film divisions of these studios, in alphabetical order.

Lionsgate
In discussing what is the second quarter of their fiscal year, ending September 30, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer admitted that several of their film releases during the time frame “didn’t live up to either our standards or our projections.” In referencing “Borderlands,” the company’s video game-adaptation action comedy that grossed only USD $33m worldwide on a USD $100m-plus budget, Feltheimer said “nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”

Lionsgate had an operating loss of USD $88.6 million on revenue of USD $948.6 million. Despite this, the motion picture group, run by Adam Fogelson, earned a profit of USD $2.6 million during the quarter, way down from the USD $67.5 million made during the same time frame last year. During the earnings call Fogelson reported that his division will be “leaning into” franchises movie forward, such as “The Hunger Games,” “John Wick” and “Saw.”

Paramount Global
Mixed would be the best way to describe third quarter earnings figures at Paramount Global, which is currently in the process of being acquired by Skydance Media. While revenue missed expectations, dropping 6% year-over-year to USD $6.73 billion, earnings per share rose 63% to USD $0.49 per share, beating forecasts.

Linear television which accounts for 80.1% of Paramount’s revenue, continues to decline and drag down the company’s financial prospects. However, revenue for its streaming business, which accounts for 27.6% of its business during the quarter, rose 10% to USD $1.86 billion, swinging to a profit of USD $49 million.

To put all of this in perspective, theatrical revenue accounted for 1.6% of its total revenue, bringing in USD $108 million during the time period. That’s a 34% decline over prior year figures. The studio had two box office successes during the quarter; “A Quiet Place: Day One” and “Transformers One.”

Sony Group Corporation
Trying to track the financials for the studio side of Sony has always required the extra step of separating them from those of the larger, global electronic manufacturer. For its second fiscal second quarter, Sony Group Corporation reported USD $2.21 billion in income, up 75%, on USD $19 billion in revenue, up 3%.

Sony combined its feature film, television networks and content production into the Pictures Division, which had USD $2.38 billion in revenues for the three months ending September 30th, down 14% over last year. Its operating income also fell to USD $124 million, a 38% drop. Sony does not have its own streaming service.

The good news for theatrical revenue is that it was essentially flat, with box office coming in at USD $455 million globally for the quarter, only USD $10 million behind the previous year. Sony released five films in cinemas over the three month period, including “It Ends With Us.”

Warner Bros. Discovery
The poster child for the state of the entertainment industry right now may be Warner Bros. Discovery. Like Paramount, the company’s earnings have been negatively affected by the plummeting revenue from its linear cable television business as a result of cord cutting.

Still, its television revenue during the third quarter amounted to USD $5 billion, accounting for over half the USD $9.6 billion in total revenue the company took in. The company’s CEO, David Zaslav used all the key buzz phrases during its recent earnings call including “generational disruption,” “significant upside,” and acknowledging “we have work to do.”

Theatrical revenue was expected to be down during the quarter since last year WBD was coming off the USD $1.4 billion “Barbie.” Despite the success of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and “Twisters,” theatrical revenue was down 40%. In discussing the movie side of WBD, Zaslav said, “For the past two years, we’ve been driving changes within our motion picture studio to improve green light governance and franchise management, which remain focal points going forward. This is a business where translating operational changes into results takes time, but I believe we’ll see those strategic shifts deliver improved outcomes in the coming years.”

Surely what helped save WBD’s third quarter earnings announcement was that the company could report 8% higher revenue for its streaming service, Max, where profits rose to USD $289 million. This was due, in part, to gaining 7.2 million subscribers, most of them international, bringing their total count to 110.5 million. The conundrum, as all legacy media companies have come to learn, is that streaming revenue is not replacing linear revenue fast enough or at the same levels.