Paramount Skydance beat Wall Street’s first-quarter revenue and profit estimates on Monday as the media company benefited from a boost from its streaming and cinema businesses.
The company reported first-quarter revenue of nearly $7.35 billion, up 2% from a year earlier, and supported by the entire streaming business, which includes Paramount+, as well as BET+ and the free, ad-supported service Pluto.
Revenue at the streaming unit rose 11% to $2.4 billion from the same period last year. Paramount+, the flagship product of the company’s streaming portfolio, added 700,000 subscribers during the quarter and grew revenue 17% year over year.
In total, Paramount+ had nearly 80 million subscribers, with the latest quarterly growth coming despite price increases for Paramount+ packages in January, the platform’s first since August 2024.
Paramount’s movie studio revenues rose 11% from the previous year to about $1.28 billion. “Scream 7” helped boost revenues and was the highest-grossing film in the horror film franchise.
The company said it has nearly doubled its film slate for 2026 compared to 2025 since Paramount’s merger with David Ellison’s Skydance closed last year.
However, like its peers, Paramount’s television media business, which includes the CBS broadcast network, as well as cable TV channels like Nickelodeon, MTV and BET, has been weighed down by continued cord-cutting. The segment reported revenue of $3.67 billion, down 6% from the same quarter last year.
Here’s Paramount Skydance’s first-quarter performance compared to Wall Street estimates compiled by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 23 cents adjusted versus 15 cents expected
- Income: $7.35 billion versus $7.28 billion expected
This is the first quarter for which Paramount Skydance is introducing a new structure, which includes a reorganization of spending allocations across direct-to-consumer streaming, studio and television media. As part of these changes, the Company has restated the financial statements for prior periods.
Paramount reported net income of $168 million, or 15 cents per share, in the first quarter, compared with net income of $152 million, or 22 cents per share, a year earlier under the so-called predecessor company, before the merger.
Including one-time transaction-related items, Paramount reported adjusted earnings per share of 23 cents.
The company on Monday reaffirmed its full-year outlook of $30 billion in revenue and $3.8 billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
The earnings report comes nine months after the Paramount-Skydance merger closed, and as the company is in the process of closing another deal – a proposed acquisition of Discovery Warner Bros..
The company expects the deal with WBD to close at the end of the third quarter. The acquisition received WBD shareholder approval in April and is currently undergoing regulatory review. Paramount Skydance agreed to acquire WBD for $31 per share, all in cash, and recently aligned its debt and equity commitments to outside investors.
As part of the merger between Paramount and Skydance, the company said it expects to save $3 billion. On Monday, Paramount claimed it was on track to make such cuts through 2027, with more than $2.5 billion expected to be eliminated by the end of 2026.
Paramount Skydance plans to consolidate the technology stack and platforms of its three streaming platforms by mid-year. Overall, improving Paramount’s streaming technology has been a priority since Ellison brought the companies together.