Viewers continue to flee CNN and other networks owned by Warner Bros. Discovery in droves, pushing down advertising revenue in what has become a non-stop free fall for the cable TV industry.
Warner Bros. Discovery saw its TV advertising revenue plunge by 11 percent during the most recent quarter, leading the Hollywood media giant to miss its earnings targets. The news sent its stock tumbling close to 4 percent in pre-market trading Thursday.
Executives blamed the collapse in advertising primarily on “audience declines in domestic general entertainment and news networks, as well as the soft linear advertising market in the U.S. and Latin America.”
CNN continues to trail far behind Fox News and MSNBC in ratings, drawing just 462,000 in total day viewers for March, down 4 percent from the previous month, according to an Adweek report. For March, there were no CNN shows in the top-15 list of most-watched cable news shows.
The anti-Trump network has been plagued by executive musical chairs, lay offs, and a seemingly never-ending reshuffling of on-air talent — all in an effort to juice the stubbornly low ratings.
Warner Bros. Discovery executives attempted to bury Thursday’s bad news by announcing a new slate of Lord of the Rings movies as well as a new streaming bundle partnership with Disney.
Like other major Hollywood studios, Warner Bros. Discovery is facing the slow-motion collapse of the traditional cable TV market — which has long been a cash cow for the studios — as American households continue to cut the cord by the millions.
As Breitbart News reported, a recent study predicts that only 38 percent of homes will have cable TV in four years’ time.
The TV advertising market has suffered under the Biden administration as sky-high consumer prices driven by inflation continue to put a serious damper on consumer spending.
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