华纳兄弟探索 2024年度报告

A Note FromDavid Zaslav Fellow Stockholders, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) was brought together with the promise and potentialto create a differentiated modern entertainment company. From the beginning, ourvision was clear: in a relentlessly evolving media landscape, WBD would distinguishitself through the combination of our depth and breadth of intellectual property, globaldistribution capabilities, and world class production studios. After years of hard workand investment to build the company’s long-term growth capabilities, in 2024, thepromise and potential we envisioned revealed itself in undeniable ways. While the workof transformation is ongoing and challenges certainly remain, our achievements in2024 are indicative of the company’s long-term growth potential, which should delivermeaningful value for investors. DEPLOYING MAX GLOBALLY When the history of WBD is written, 2024 will be remembered as the year in which Maxarrived as a global streaming platform with a presence in over 70 countries. There isno single asset that more powerfully links our company together, is more integral toour strategy, or has received more investment and attention than Max. Our greatestdifferentiator as a company is the depth of stories audiences crave from our library.As a global streaming platform, Max now gives us the ability to fully monetize that corestrength. Whether it’s a Harry Potter movie, a new episode ofThe Last of Us, a classicepisode ofThe Big Bang Theory, or one of thousands of examples in between, our libraryis increasingly valuable as audiences enjoy it on Max. As Max has scaled globally, we’ve seen strong corresponding subscriber growth.Over the course of 2024, our Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) segment added 19 million totalsubscribers, representing a 20% year-over-year increase. Best yet, we see significantsubscriber growth still ahead as Max’s global rollout continues. With planned launchesstill coming in markets such as the United Kingdom & Ireland, Germany, and Italy – eachbeing locations where we know there is strong existing demand for WBD content – wesee a clear path to reach 150 million DTC subscribers by the end of 2026. The result is both a popular and profitable streaming service with great long-termearnings potential. In 2022, at the outset of the process of relaunching Max, our DTCsegment operated at a $2.1 billion Adjusted EBITDA loss on a merger-related pro formabasis. Last year, our DTC segment delivered nearly $700 million in Adjusted EBITDA. This represents a nearly $3 billion profit improvement in just two years. We expect this positivetrajectory to continue, as we now anticipate our DTC Adjusted EBITDA result will nearlydouble year-over-year to $1.3 billion in 2025. In today’s shifting landscape, a scaled, global streaming service is a more valuable andnecessary asset for entertainment companies than ever before. WBD is now amongthe very small handful of companies with globally scaled and meaningfully profitablestreaming services. This greatly strengthens our competitive position and is a sign of ourpositive long-term outlook. DEFENDING & OPTIMIZING OUR NETWORKS 2024 also saw significant progress and critical accomplishments in other areas of WBD,particularly defending and optimizing our Networks segment in response to the secularheadwinds we face in the broader linear television market. We entered 2024 wrestling with many significant variable factors in Networks, especiallyour distribution agreements and our portfolio of sports rights. In both cases, we ended theyear with greater certainty, stability, and a clearer outlook. We struck new multi-year agreements with the largest pay-TV providers in the U.S. Notonly were these agreements reached ahead of schedule, but all deliver overall annualrate increases. This is evidence of how much distributors continue to value our portfolioof networks, and these agreements provide WBD with greater visibility into our Networks’distribution revenues over the coming years. Late in 2024, we resolved our negotiations with the NBA. As result, we have entered intoa far more efficient long-term relationship with the league in which we retained valuablerights to NBA games in several international markets, as well as NBA digital highlightsglobally for Bleacher Report. Through adjacent negotiations with ESPN, we will continue toproduce the iconic Inside the NBA franchise and gain rights to certain Big XII football andbasketball games. We are investing with fiscal discipline in adding new rights to our sportsportfolio, which now includes the U.S. rights for the French Open, Unrivaled, NASCAR,multiple college sports assets, including the College Football Playoffs, on top of MarchMadness, MLB, and NHL. We will continue to opportunistically consider sports rights asthey become available. RETURNING OUR STUDIOS TO LEADERSHIP Finally, in 2024, we continued the important work of returning our Studios to their place asindustry leaders. Across the broader Stud