Coverage spread: 2 sources — 1 center · 1 right
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
Where they agree
- Paramount’s Q2 revenue rose about 1% to $6.91 billion, beating estimates, while profit of $41 million (4 cents/share) missed analyst expectations.
- Streaming revenue grew roughly 9% and Paramount+ added 2 million subscribers, reaching 81.6 million total, helped by ‘Dutton Ranch,’ UFC events, and World Cup coverage.
- Television/linear revenue fell about 9% to roughly $3.1 billion, continuing cable’s decline.
- A federal judge set a March trial date for the multistate antitrust lawsuit against the $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, and CEO David Ellison said he expects to win and close the deal.
Where they differ
- The New York Post emphasizes the legal battle, spotlighting Ellison’s ‘we’ll win at trial’ quote and the states’ lawsuit details.
- CNBC leads with the raised full-year EBITDA guidance ($3.8-3.9 billion) and frames the merger fight as secondary context.
- The Post includes detail on Ellison’s New York Times essay questioning the motives behind opposition to the deal, which CNBC’s excerpt omits.
- CNBC provides more specific forward guidance, including flat Q3 subscriber growth expectations and the $3 billion merger savings target, details not covered in the Post’s piece.
What Paramount reported
Paramount Skydance released second-quarter results on Tuesday that showed a company split between a growing streaming business and a shrinking traditional TV unit. Total revenue rose about 1% to $6.91 billion, beating analyst estimates of $6.88 billion compiled by LSEG. But profit fell short: the company earned $41 million, or 4 cents a share, down from $57 million, or 8 cents a share, a year earlier, and well below Wall Street’s adjusted estimate of around 9 to 15 cents a share depending on the source.
The direct-to-consumer streaming segment, which includes Paramount+, BET+ and Pluto TV, brought in roughly $2.47 to $2.5 billion, up 9% year over year. Paramount+ added 2 million subscribers, pushing its global total to 81.6 million. The company credited the “Yellowstone” spinoff “Dutton Ranch,” UFC events including a card called Freedom 250, and FIFA World Cup coverage in parts of Latin America for what it called its best quarter for subscriber retention ever. Chief Operating Officer Andy Gordon told Reuters the company has now merged its streaming services onto one shared technology platform, which he said helps it promote content more effectively across services.
The film studio business also grew, with revenue reported between $1.3 and $1.31 billion, up as much as 16%, driven by licensing deals with third parties like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and stronger content licensing overall, even though the summer theatrical slate was thinner than last year’s. This year’s headline release was “Jackass: Best and Last,” compared with “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” in the same period last year. Gordon also pointed to a new multi-year licensing deal with Mattel built around the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand.
Television media revenue, covering CBS and cable networks such as Comedy Central, fell 9% to about $3.1 billion, continuing linear TV’s decline. The company said cost cuts and stronger creative choices in TV helped protect margins despite the drop in sales.
Looking ahead, Paramount raised its full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $3.8 billion to $3.9 billion, citing savings tied to last year’s Skydance-Paramount merger, part of a targeted $3 billion in total merger savings. It still expects full-year revenue of about $30 billion, a 4% increase, with third-quarter revenue guided between $6.95 billion and $7.15 billion and profit before certain items between $875 million and $975 million. Paramount+ subscriber growth is expected to be roughly flat next quarter.
The Warner Bros. Discovery fight
The earnings came out on the same day a federal judge in California set a March trial date for an antitrust lawsuit filed by a coalition of a dozen states, led by California, seeking to block Paramount’s proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. On the earnings call, CEO David Ellison said Paramount remains “absolutely open to finding a solution out of court” but added the company believes it “will win at trial” if the case proceeds. In its earnings statement, Paramount said the lawsuit “does not reflect the realities of today’s highly competitive entertainment marketplace.” Ellison separately published an essay in the New York Times arguing that opposition to the deal is rooted in something other than concerns about market concentration, though the specifics of that argument were not detailed further in the earnings coverage.
How the coverage compares
Both outlets covered the same earnings release and legal development, but with different emphasis. The New York Post foregrounds Ellison’s combative legal stance, quoting his “we’ll win at trial” comment prominently and giving more attention to the states’ lawsuit and the March trial date. CNBC frames the story more around the financial guidance, leading with the raised full-year EBITDA outlook and treating the merger fight as a secondary, ongoing backdrop. CNBC also provides more detail on subscriber guidance for the coming quarter and the scale of merger-related cost savings, while the Post includes additional color on Ellison’s New York Times essay and the specific slate comparison between this year’s and last year’s summer films.
Why this matters
The results mark roughly a year since Skydance’s merger with Paramount closed, putting Ellison in charge of a legacy media company now navigating the same forces reshaping the whole industry: streaming growth offsetting a shrinking cable and broadcast business. The bigger question hanging over the company is whether it can also absorb Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that would reshape the media landscape but has drawn a multistate legal challenge on competition grounds. With a trial now scheduled for March, the outcome will determine whether Paramount’s expansion plans move forward as designed or face a court-ordered block.
Sources
Featured photo: Coolcaesar via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)