HBO Max added subscribers and Q4 streaming revenue grew. Warner Bros. Discovery media networks lost ground with advertising pinched year-on-year by the loss of the NBA in a mixed quarter. But it’s the roiling M&A tide, with Paramount suddenly in a position to hijack a planned Netflix transaction, that’s top of mind on Wall Street amid WBD’s latest financials. Suitors had been looking under the hood for months, earnings are a peek inside for everyone else.

The David Ellison and David Zaslav-run companies are currently in talks, a new development that means PSKY’s latest offer has a shot at at the deal. If WBD decides Paramount’s offer is superior, Netflix will have four business days to match it. Paramount executives offered no update on an earnings call Wednesday, with the same likely from WBD at its analysts’ confab set for 8:30 am ET.

The media giant, which put itself on the aution block last fall and agreed in December to sell Netflix its studio and streaming assets, saw Q4 revenue dip 6% to $9.46 billion. Adjusted ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a key metric) fell 19% to $2.2 billion.

Net losses narrowed to $252 million from $494 million, including  $1.3 billion in restructuring, transaction-related and other costs.

Warner Bros. film studio, an awards and box office tour de force, saw the pace slow in the fourth quarter with basically no new releases. (One Battle After Another hit September 26.) Q4 theatrical revenue fell 11%.

Sinners, A Minecraft Movie, Superman, Weapons, The Conjuring: Last Rights and Final Destination: Bloodlines all helped drive full year studio profit up 54% to $2.5 billion as it moves towards a $3 billion target. Wuthering Heights started 2026 with a bang, generating $83 million at the global box office opening weekend and the studio’s ninth consecutive theatrical release to debut at no. 1.

Upcoming are Supergirl and Dune: Messiah, Evil Dead Burn, Warner Bros. Animation’s The Cat In The Hat.

Television revenue fell 18% (on the timing of intersegment content renewals). Volatile games revenue was down 34%. Total Studios revenue fell 13% to $3.2 billion for the quarter and rose 9% to $12.6 million for the yar. Studios profit fell 23% to $728 million for the quarter.

In Streaming, revenues rose 4% to $2.8 billion as HBO Max grew subs by 13% on continued growth and global expansion Advertising revenue jumped 17% on an increase in ad-lite subscribers, partially offset by a 3% hit from the absence of the NBA.

HBO Max ended the year with 131.6 million subscribers, an sequential increase of 3.5 million from Q3.

WBD cited a nice start to to 2026 for HBO Max with the return of Industry and The Pitt, growing season-over-season viewership by 30% and 50%, respectively and demonstrating steady week-over-week audience growth. GoT’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is averaging over 24 million viewers per episode globally and growing.

HBO Max launched in Germany Italy and a handful other markets early this year ahead of a March 26 debut in the UK and Ireland for “a clear line of sight to exceed 140 million subscribers by the end of the first quarter, well on our way to over 150 million subscribers by year end 2026.”

Content revenue rose18% ex-foreign exchange, driven by the timing of domestic third-party content sales. Total streaming profit fell 7% $393 for the quarter and jumped 115% for the year, to $1.3 billion

The media giant ended the year with $4.6 billion of cash on hand, $33.5 billion of gross debt and 3.3x net leverage. Debt and leverage will inform WBD’s planned spinoff of Discovery Global, unless PSKY is successful in buying the whole company.

Global Networks continues to slump, along with the broader linear TV ecosystem. Quarterly revenue fell 12% to $4.2 billion and profit dropped 27% to $1.4 billion, driven by a 10% downturn in domestic linear pay TV subscribers.

Advertising revenue fell 14% on domestic audience declines of 22% and the absence of the NBA, which resulted in a 4% hit to year-on-year growth. WBD did note a sequential improvement in advertising from Q3.

For the full year, linear profit fell 21% on revenue down 13%.

In a letter to shareholders this morning, WBD highlighted Networks’ global footprint, its free-to-air business in Europe and CNN, which it called “a highly valuable asset.” It said a TNT Sports app, to be the centralized destination for its U.S. portfolio, is well underway with a planned launch this year both standalone and through distribution and bundling partnerships.

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