The results were bolstered by a 19% year over year increase in advertising services revenue to $14.3 billion, which includes sales to sellers, vendors, publishers, authors and others through programs such as sponsored ads, display and video advertising.

Net sales for its subscriptions services segment, which includes annual and monthly fees associated with Amazon Prime memberships, as well as digital video, audiobook, digital music, e-book and other non-Amazon Web Services subscription services, grew 11% to $11.3 billion during the third quarter.

Here are the top-line results:

Net income: $15.3 billion, compared to $9.9 billion a year ago.

Earnings per share: $1.43 per diluted share, compared to $1.14 expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue: $158.9 billion, up 11% year over year, compared to $157.07 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Operating income: $17.4 billion, compared to $11.2 billion a year ago.

In January, Prime Video launched its ad-supported tier, which serves as the default for all subscribers and is available to more than 200 million monthly viewers, including 115 million in the United States.  

Currently, Amazon Prime, which includes Prime Video, costs $14.99 per month or $139 a year. A membership that only includes Prime Video and none of the company’s shipping benefits costs $8.99 a month. Users can pay an extra $2.99 per month for an ad-free experience.

In September, it was revealed that Amazon secured more than $1.8 billion in advertiser commitments for its streaming services during its inaugural upfront presentation in New York City — topping the tech company’s internal expectations.

“Advertising remains an important contributor to profitability in the North America and international segments. This quarter, we saw strong growth on an increasing large base of advertising revenue,” chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky told analysts on Thursday. “There are many opportunities to further expand our ads offering in areas that are driving growth today, like sponsored products, as well as more recent growth areas like Prime Video Ads.”

During the quarter, the tech giant launched a new generative AI feature around video generation and live image capabilities for advertisers, which makes it fast and easy for brands to deliver short, animated campaign images.

Amazon also touted the launch of Season 2 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” on Prime Video, the addition of Apple TV+ to the streamer’s collection of over 100 add-on subscription channels in the U.S. and last week’s “Thursday Night Football” game between the Cowboys and the Giants drawing over 17 million viewers, becoming the most-streamed NFL regular season game ever.

“As we get into the holiday season, we’re excited about what we have in store for customers,” Amazon president and CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. “We kicked off the holiday season with our biggest-ever Prime Big Deal Days and the launch of an all-new Kindle lineup that is significantly outperforming our expectations; and there’s so much more coming, from tens of millions of deals, to our NFL Black Friday game and Election Day coverage with Brian Williams on Prime Video, to over 100 new cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities that we’ll share at AWS re:Invent the week after Thanksgiving.”

Jassy also told analysts that AWS has released nearly twice as many machine learning and generative AI features as the other leading cloud providers combined. He also noted the AWS AI business is a “multi-billion dollar revenue rate business” that continues to grow at a triple digit year over year percentage — more than three times faster than AWS itself.

North America segment sales grew 9% year-over-year to $95.5 billion, while its operating income came in at $5.7 billion, compared to $4.3 billion a year ago. International segment sales jumped 12% year-over-year to $35.9 billion, while operating income was $1.3 billion compared with a loss of $100 million in the prior year period. AWS segment sales increased 19% year-over-year to $27.5 billion, while operating income grew to $10.4 billion from $7 billion a year ago.

Operating cash flow grew 57% to $112.7 billion for the trailing 12 months, compared with $71.7 billion for the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2023. Free cash flow increased to $47.7 billion for the trailing 12 months, compared with $21.4 billion during the same period a year ago.

Looking ahead at the fourth quarter of 2024, Amazon expects net sales in the range of $181.5 billion to $188.5 billion, or growth of 7% to 11% compared with the prior year period, while operating income is expected to be between $16 billion and $20 billion, compared with $13.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The post Amazon Ad Sales Rise 19% to $14.3 Billion in Q3 appeared first on TheWrap.

That portfolio includes Oxygen True Crime, Bravo, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, E!, Syfy, Universal Kids and Spanish-language channel Universo. The spinoff would not include the company’s broadcast operations.

Shares of Comcast popped 7% in pre-market trading on Thursday following the announcement.

“Like many of our peers in media, we are experiencing the effects of the transition in our video businesses, and have been studying the best path forward for these assets,” Comcast president Mike Cavanagh told analysts on Thursday during the company’s third quarter earnings call. “To that end, we are now exploring whether creating a new well-capitalized company owned by our shareholders and comprised of our strong portfolio of cable networks would position them to take advantage of opportunities in the changing media landscape and create value for our shareholders. We are not ready to talk about any specifics yet, but we’ll be back to you as and when we reach firm conclusions.”

“The reason we’re announcing here is that we want to study it, there are a lot of questions to which we don’t have answers,” Cavanagh added. “So we want to do the work, with transparency around it, so that — as you know, rumors fly and the like, you know, we expect that — but we want our shareholders to understand what we’re willing to look at.”

Cavanagh declined to say how a possible spinoff would impact overall revenue, emphasizing that the company doesn’t want to get ahead of itself.

“Obviously, if we do anything like that, it will have an impact on the consolidated company. But I think the point that we’d make is that it doesn’t change the fact that within the business today, we got six growth drivers that represent more than half our revenues that are growing this quarter at 9% or so, and on a trailing basis spinning that high single digits, sometimes 10%,” he explained. “So the company is transforming itself to a top line growing company as our mix changes. Whether we do something like a spin or not, I’d focus everybody on what the underlying is.”

He emphasized that the NBCUniversal parent has a “very strong hand” and that he’s “proud of every part of it.”

“I think the idea of playing some offense, when you combine the balance sheet strength that we have, the assets we have, and the management team we have, there may be some smart things to do and we want to study that,” he added.

Cavanagh’s remarks come as competitors Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery took a collective $15 billion in write-downs on the value of their cable networks and softness in the U.S. linear advertising market during their second quarters of 2024. In its third quarter of 2024, Comcast shed 365,000 pay TV subscribers for a total of 12.8 million, with video revenue falling 6.2% year over year to $6.7 billion.

In addition to a spinoff, Cavanagh said that Comcast would consider streaming partnerships to help grow Peacock, which reported a narrowed loss of $436 million, revenue growth of 82% year over year to $1.5 billion and a 29% year over year increase in paid subscribers to 36 million during the third quarter.

“As you know, we chose not to participate in the M&A process around Paramount in the earlier part of this year, but we would consider partnerships in streaming despite their complexities,” he said.

The post Comcast Exploring Spinoff of Cable Networks appeared first on TheWrap.

Peacock posted a loss of $436 million during the quarter, a 22% improvement over a $565 million loss in the prior-year period. The streamer’s revenue grew 82% $1.5 billion, and it added 3 million paid subscribers for a total of 36 million, up 29%.

The Olympic games brought in record high revenue of $1.9 billion, with average daily viewership of 31 million across the company’s linear networks and Peacock, an 82% increase compared to the 2021 Summer Olympics.

“We achieved this result by leaning in with the full symphony of Comcast and NBCUniversal playing together and a big bet on new ideas and innovation that paid off,” Comcast president Mike Cavanagh told analysts on Thursday. “We are all very grateful to our NBC Sports team and look forward to them bringing the lessons learned and momentum to our entire sports portfolio.”

Here are the top-line results:

Net income: $3.63 billion, down 10.3% year over year. On an adjusted basis, net income fell 3.3% year over year to $4.3 billion.

Earnings per share: 94 cents, down 4.2% year over year. On an adjusted basis, EPS came in at $1.12 per share, up 3.3%, compared to $1.06 per share expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue: $32.07 billion, up 6.5%, compared to $31.8 billion expected by Zacks.

Adjusted EBITDA: $9.74 billion, down 2.3% year over year

The Studios division was also a bright spot, with a 12.3% increase in revenue and 9% increase in adjusted EBITDA, driven by the strong performance of “Twisters” and “Despicable Me 4” at the box office.

But the quarter’s overall results were dragged down by weakness in theme parks, with the segment posting a 5.3% decrease in revenue and 13.8% decrease in adjusted EBITDA, as well as continued pay TV and broadband subscriber declines.

The surprise news of the day, however, was Cavanagh’s announcement that Comcast was considering a spin-off of its cable assets, and was open to streaming partnerships to help Peacock grow.

With linear TV business continuing to erode, the executive talked about “playing some offense” with a possible separation of the cable network from the larger company. “When you combine the balance sheet strength that we have, the assets we have, and the management team we have, there may be some smart things to do and we want to study that,” Cavanagh added.

Net cash from operating activities fell 13.9% to $7.02 billion, while free cash flow fell 15.5% to $3.4 billion. Comcast returned $3.2 billion to shareholders during the quarter, including $2 billion in share repurchases and $1.2 billion in dividend payments.

Olympics boost NBCUniversal, Peacock

The Content & Experiences segment saw revenue grow 19.3% to $12.6 billion. Profit declines in the theme parks and media segments pushed down adjusted EBITDA by 8.7% to $1.8 billion, which was partially offset by growth in the studios division.

Overall media revenue shot up 36.5% to $8.23 billion due to higher domestic advertising and domestic distribution revenue. Excluding the impact of the Olympics, media revenue increased 4.9% to $6.34 billion.

The Paris Olympics and additional Peacock sales also fueled domestic advertising revenue growth of 74.9% to $3.35 billion, which was partially offset by lower revenue at the company’s networks. Domestic distribution revenue climbed 26.3% to $3.27 billion, which primarily reflected the broadcast of the Paris Olympics and higher revenue at Peacock.

International networks revenue rose 5% to $1.07 billion due to the positive impact of foreign currency and an increase in revenue associated with the distribution of sports networks. Other revenue grew 7.2% to $542 million, primarily due to an increase in revenue from content licensing.

Adjusted EBITDA for the media segment fell 10% to $650 million, due to higher operating expenses from increased sports programming costs associated with the Olympics, higher programming costs at Peacock and an increase in other sports programming costs for domestic television networks. 

“Twisters” and “Despicable Me 4” boost Studios, but Theme Parks are a drag

The Studios segment saw revenue grow 12.3% to $2.83 billion, primarily due to higher content licensing revenue and theatrical revenue. The higher revenues allowed Adjusted EBITDA for the segment to grew 9% to $468 million, which offset higher operating expenses from programming and production associated with content licensing sales, including the impact of Hollywood strikes in the prior-year period.

Content licensing revenue increased 10.3% to $1.87 billion. Theatrical revenue increased 21.3% to $611 million due to the successful performance of recent releases, including “Despicable Me 4” and “Twisters.”

Revenue in the Theme Parks segment slipped 5.3% to $2.29 billion, primarily due to lower revenue and guest attendance at its domestic theme parks, while adjusted EBITDA declined 13.8% to $847 million, reflecting lower revenue and consistent operating expenses.

“Our view is there was both a pull forward of demand that we clearly saw in 2022 and 2023, which were record years for the theme parks and beyond our expectations, as well as the new attraction pipeline, which is light this year, but we’re building towards a substantial pipeline next year,” chief financial officer Jason Armstrong said. “We think these factors will likely be in place until the second quarter of next year, which is both when we start to lap the pressure we saw this year and the launch of Epic Universe.”

Company executives touted the opening of Comcast’s Epic Universe theme park in May 2025, noting there will be associated opening costs of $150 million in the fourth quarter and first quarter of 2025, with the majority of the cost expect in the latter.

“Once Epic opens, Universal Orlando will be transformed into a weeks long vacation, offering four theme parks, a CityWalk, dining, retail and entertainment district, and 11 hotels,” Cavanagh said. “Epic will build on everything we’ve excelled at in the present and in the past and make it even better by infusing iconic storytelling with cutting edge technology in five fully themed worlds, each one telling a fantastic story based on world renowned movies and literature.”

Comcast sheds pay TV, broadband subscribers, but wireless a bright spot

Comcast continued to bleed pay TV subscribers, shedding 365,000 during the quarter for a total of 12.8 million. It lost 87,000 domestic broadband subscribers for a total of 31.98 million.

The company did add 319,000 domestic wireless lines for a total of 7.52 million. Total customers relationships fell by 29,000 to 51.7 million, primarily reflecting a decrease domestically, which was partially offset by an increase in international relationships.

Total revenue for the Connectivity & Platforms segment fell 0.4% to $20.29 billion, with a 1% decrease in residential revenues to $17.9 billion and 4.5% increase in business services revenues to $2.42 billion. Adjusted EBITDA grew 0.7% to $8.3 billion, with a 0.3% increase in residential to $6.9 billion and 4.2% increase in business services to $1.39 billion.

Total residential connectivity revenue grew 5.7% to $8.9 billion, including a 2.7% increase in domestic broadband revenue to $6.54 billion due to higher average rates, a 19.2% jump in domestic wireless revenue to $1.09 billion due to the increase in customer lines and devices sales, and a 11.4% boost in international connectivity revenue to $1.23 billion from increased broadband revenue.

Video revenue fell 6.2% to $6.7 billion due to a decline in the number of video customers, partially offset by an overall increase in average rates, while total video advertising revenue increased 1.6% to $987 million because of higher domestic political advertising.

Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson noted that the subscriber and financial impacts of Hurricanes Milton and Helene on its cable systems could be significantly less than the impact of Hurricane Ian in 2022.

“We don’t have an exact number to share at this moment, but there’ll be some impact tied to the two hurricanes also in Q4 while the return of seasonals to the Southeast usually provides a good tailwind, not like back to school, but still a nice impact, we’ll have to see what the potential impact we see with this activity due to the hurricane,” Watson added.

He also said that the company expects churn in the Connectivity & Platforms segment to remain low as it focuses on retention, channel management and leverages offers and product packaging such as Now TV, Now Latino and Streamsaver.

Armstrong added that the segment would take cost reduction actions in the fourth quarter of 2024 of “equal magnitude” to the company’s previous fourth quarters.

The post Peacock Q3 Loss Narrows to $436 Million as Paris Olympics Boost Subs to 36 Million appeared first on TheWrap.

“We had a good quarter driven by AI progress across our apps and business,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.

Zuckerberg, on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday afternoon, said 500 million users are now interacting with Meta’s AI chatbot, which offers answers to users on apps like Facebook and Instagram. He also said the company would continue to invest in the long-term future potential of AI, AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality), despite growing concerns from investors over mounting losses at Meta’s Reality Labs division, which has booked losses of $24.2 billion over 2023 and 2024.

Here are the top-line results: 

Revenues: $40.59 billion, up 19% from $34.15 billion in 2023. Meta’s Q3 sales topped analysts from Zack’s Investment Research estimated revenues of $40.21 billion. The company’s quarter-over-quarter revenue growth slowed from Q2, when the company reported a 22% annual jump in sales. As usual, the bulk of Meta’s sales — 96% — came from ads.

Net income: $15.68 billion, an increase of 35% compared to $11.58 billion the year prior. Meta’s diluted earnings per share of $6.03 beat Zack’s estimate EPS of $5.19. The company’s Q3 profit topped its previous record for quarterly net income, which it set during the fourth quarter of last year when it posted a $14 billion profit.

Daily active users: 3.29 billion DAUs across its family of apps — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads — by the end of September, up 5% year-over-year. Meta added 30 million daily users quarter-over-quarter, although the company didn’t share how those gains broke down by app.

Threads: Zuckerberg said that Threads, the company’s social app that launched as a rival to X last year, now has 275 million monthly users. That’s up 37.5% from Q2, when the company said Threads was approaching 200 million monthly users. CFO Susan Li, on the company’s earnings call, said Threads has seen healthy growth in the U.S. and overseas markets including Taiwan. At the same time, Li said, “We don’t expect Threads to be a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue.”

Average price per ad: The average price of an ad on one of Meta’s apps increased 11% year-over-year, indicating the appetite for reaching users on Facebook and Instagram remains strong.

Head count: Meta reported 72,404 employees at the end of September, up 9% from the prior year. Meta’s growth stands out, as many tech companies, including TikTok, have cut jobs in recent months.

Guidance: Meta said it expects to report between $45 billion and $48 billion in sales next quarter.

Mounting Reality Labs losses

Facebook Reality Labs, the company’s unit dedicated to virtual and augmented reality hardware and software, continued to stick out like a sore thumb on Meta’s earnings report due to its losses. FRL’s operating loss was $4.4 billion for Q3, up 19% from the year prior. In the first nine months of 2024, Meta has lost $12.76 billion on FRL, which is currently developing its Orion AR-powered smart glasses.

Zuckerberg is bullish on the future of smart glasses, saying last month they’ll “gradually replace phones by 2030.” And Meta appears unfazed by FRL’s mounting losses.

The company expects “operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts and investments to further scale our ecosystem,” Li on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg added it was important for the company to continue investing in AI, AR, and VR, even if that’s not “what investors want to hear in the near-term” as losses grow. “The opportunities here are really big,” Zuckerberg said.

The company’s stock, which has been red hot in 2024, took a momentary breather after Meta’s Q3 report posted. Shares dropped 1.5% in early after-hours trading to $583 per share. On the year, Meta’s stock is up 70%.

Meta has continued its push into artificial intelligence in recent months, as the company battles Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft, as well as Microsoft-backed OpenAI in the budding sector. Last month, Meta announced its AI chatbot would be voiced by Hollywood stars like Kristen Bell and Keegan-Michael Key. And last week, Meta struck a multi-year deal with Reuters to include the news organization’s content in responses from its AI chatbot.

In an effort to reduce its dependence on Google and Bing, Meta is also working to build its own AI-powered search engine, that would drive its chatbot’s responses.

When it comes to another hot topic — politics — Meta has been conspicuously quiet during the run up to Election Day. In 2020, the company — after facing backlash for Russian bots being able to run ads during the 2016 presidential race — tightly policed COVID-19 and election news on its platform. Most notably, Facebook took steps to limit the distribution of a New York Post report on Hunter Biden, the son of then-nominee Joe Biden, in October 2020.

This year, Meta has opted to deemphasize political content on its platforms, at the behest of Zuckerberg. Instead, Meta’s apps are now more likely to recommend sports, cooking and celebrity news to users.

On the Instagram front, Meta announced last month it would start applying restrictions to kids’ accounts in an effort to make the app more “safe,” in the company’s words.

Looking ahead, Zuckerberg said he was “pretty amped” about the work Meta is doing on the AI and AR/VR front.

“This may be the most dynamic moment that I’ve seen in our industry,” Zuckerberg said on the Q3 call. “And I am focused on making sure that we build some awesome things and make the most of the opportunities ahead.”

The post Meta Posts Record $15.7 Billion Profit as Net Income Balloons 35% in Q3 appeared first on TheWrap.

That’s an improvement from the $89 million in revenue and just $3.6 million in net income that Imax reported in Q2 of this year amid strike-induced production delays in Hollywood and the poor performance of May tentpole films like Universal’s “The Fall Guy” and Warner Bros.’ “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”

Here are the key takeaways:

Revenue: $91.45 million, down 12% year over year from $103.90 million

Net Income: $13.90 million, up 16% from $11.99 million.

EPS: Adjusted net earnings per share of 35 cents, which beat consensus estimates from Zacks Investment Research of 22 cents a share.

Box Office Grosses: $239 million in global grosses, a plummet of $107.6 million, or 31%, from the previous-year quarter.

Missing in this year second quarter for Imax was the more than $180 million in grosses it pulled from “Oppenheimer,” IMAX’s fifth highest-grossing title of all time, the company said.

Universal/Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4” and Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” were also among the top grossing films for the format in the quarter.

“IMAX continues to set the table for a new, sustained era of growth with a 2025 and 2026 slate that is as promising as we’ve ever seen,” said Rich Gelfond, CEO of IMAX. “With an exceptional content pipeline, accelerating system installations, and robust sales activity worldwide, we are very well-positioned to execute and capitalize on the opportunity ahead over the next several years.”

Expecting a record 2025

Q4 2024 may see slightly lower revenue for Imax than expected due to the extremely poor performance of “Joker: Folie a Deux,” which only this past weekend crossed $200 million in global grosses after its predecessor became the first $1 billion R-rated hit in 2019.

But several films are teed up to make up for what “Joker 2” couldn’t earn, most notably Universal’s “Wicked,” which is seeing extremely strong pre-sales and is on its way to a potential $100 million-plus opening weekend. Paramount’s “Gladiator II” and Disney’s “Mufasa” are also among the films on Imax’s end-of-year slate list.

The company expects even bigger things in 2025, projecting it will have its biggest year ever at the box office with $1.2 billion in global grosses. Films like Warner Bros./DC Studios’ “Superman,” Disney/Marvel Studios’ “Fantastic 4: First Steps” and 20th Century’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” are among the titles set to top the charts in the first year since 2019 where the release slate is not expected to be hampered by pandemic or strike delays.

Meanwhile, Imax continues its campaign to expand its global auditorium footprint, installing 49 new systems worldwide this past quarter. In total, 119 new deals have been made by Imax with theater chains worldwide this year, putting it on pace to exceed the full-year total of 129 in 2023 and the high end of the 130-150 deals projected by the company at the start of the year.

The post Imax Revenue Down 12% From ‘Oppenheimer’ Boom, But Improves From Q2 to $91.5 Million appeared first on TheWrap.

The streamer and hardware maker also revealed it will no longer report the total number of streaming households or average revenue per user metrics starting in the first quarter of 2025 as it shifts focus to growing platform revenue and profitability.

“Our various markets are in different stages of monetization and have different
economics. While a large portion of our Streaming Household growth is in our international markets, the majority of our Platform revenue is currently generated in the U.S.,” the company wrote in its shareholder letter. “Therefore, as we continue to grow internationally, Streaming Household growth is not representative of Platform revenue growth.”

In addition to platform revenue, the company will continue to break out streaming hours, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. Roku expects to continue to grow its total streaming households and will provide updates on certain milestones. It anticipates it will reach 100 million streaming households in the next 12 to 18 months.

Roku shares fell more than 10% in after-hours trading on Wednesday following the release of its quarterly results.

Here are the top-line results:

Net loss: $9.03 million, compared to a net loss of $330.1 million a year ago.

Earnings per share: A loss of 6 cents per share compared to a loss of 35 cents per share estimated by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue: $1.06 billion, up 16% year over year, compared to $1.02 billion estimated by Zacks.

Streaming Households: 85.5 million, an increase of 2 million from the previous quarter.

Streaming Hours: 32 billion, a year over year increase of 5.3 billion, or 20.3%. Average streaming hours per household per day was 4.1 hours, compared to 3.9 hours a year ago.

Platform revenue for the quarter, which is largely based on advertising sales and subscription revenues split with partners, was $908.2 million. The 15% year over year growth reflected an increasing share of Streaming Households in international markets. Meanwhile, devices revenue grew 23% year over year to $154 million.

Average revenue per user was flat year over year at $41.10 on a trailing 12-month basis. Total gross profit rose 30% to $480 million, or 10% when excluding $18.5 million in restructuring charges during the quarter. Total operating expenses fell 28% to $515.8 million. The company achieved its fifth straight quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow, which came in at $98.2 million and $157.3 million, respectively.

Streaming service distribution activities during the quarter grew faster than platform revenue, primarily due to price increases for the services on its platform. Roku continues to focus on growing its share of subscriptions billed through Roku Pay and innovating its home screen to expand monetization. The company also said that its advertising growth activities outperformed the overall U.S. ad and streaming ad markets, excluding the media and entertainment vertical.

“Due to our many growth initiatives and focused efforts to diversify ad demand,
M&E is a significantly smaller percentage of our overall Platform business now versus the last several years,” Roku noted.

During the quarter, The Roku Channel grew its streaming hours by 80% year over year and hit an all-time high in Nielsen’s Gauge report for August, representing 4.1% of all TV streaming time in the U.S. During the June 27 presidential debate, The Roku Channel’s FAST offering reported its highest day for reach and engagement. Meanwhile, during the Sept. 10 debate, more than half of The Roku Channel’s U.S. viewers watched on one of the live channels.

Looking ahead, Roku expects that its monetization efforts, including an expanded partnership with The Trade Desk, and tailwinds from political ad spend will continue in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Roku CEO Anthony Wood also told analysts during Wednesday’s conference call that the company is looking at how it can integrate generative AI to drive platform revenue and that its recently launched Roku Ad Manager platform for small and medium sized businesses will be a “huge opportunity” to do so.

Roku is currently forecasting total Q4 net revenue of $1.14 billion, or year over year growth of 16%, with platform and devices revenue expected to climb 14% and 25% year over year, respectively. It also anticipates total gross profit of $465 million, a net loss of $65 million, adjusted EBITDA of $30 million and operating expenses growth of 9% year over year due to sales and marketing seasonality. The company noted that operating expense growth will be slightly down for the full year, reflecting ongoing operational discipline.

“We remain confident in our ability to grow Platform revenue in 2025 and beyond as we grow ad demand, lean into our Home Screen as the lead-in for TV, and grow Roku-billed subscriptions,” the shareholder letter concluded.

The post Roku Posts More Than $1 Billion in Revenue in Q3 for First Time, Shaves Net Loss to $9 Million appeared first on TheWrap.

The wiki-driven company that owns brands like GameSpot, Metacritic, GameFAQs, Screen Junkies and TV Guide was forced to lay off more staffers on Wednesday due to market changes. The organizational update did not affect one specific website.

The layoffs are just the latest since Fandom acquired the suite of sites in October 2022 for a reported $55 million. The first round of cuts then came less than four months later in January 2023.

At least two writers confirmed their dismissals on X, with a third stating this is the fourth round of layoffs since the 2022 acquisition. Read the tweets, below:

TheWrap has reached out to Fandom for comment.

More to come…

The post Fandom Lays Off More Staff in Latest Restructuring appeared first on TheWrap.

Bauer, who was elevated to the position in 2022 as part of a restructuring following Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM, previously served as MGM’s president of international TV.

An individual familiar with the matter tells TheWrap that the decision was made by Bauer, who is looking to “return to her entrepreneurial roots” and pursue options outside the company. The separation was a mutual decision with Amazon and her official date of leave remains to be determined.

During her tenure over the past two years, the Pan-English division has produced six projects, including “Harlan Coben’s Lazarus” starring Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy, “Haven” with Sophie Turner, “Quarter Life” with Riz Ahmed and “The Girlfriend” with Robin Wright and Olivia Cooke.

The Pan-English team will now be absorbed into the larger Amazon MGM Studios team and there will be continuity with them for the PE series and their respective launches on Prime Video.

Prior to Amazon, Bauer co-founded Tandem Productions in 1999. In 2015, StudioCanal took a 51% stake in the company and rebranded it to StudioCanal TV, where Bauer led original production, content acquisitions, international co-productions and distribution. She would leave the company in 2020 after the rest of the company was bought out by StudioCanal.

The post Amazon MGM Studios’ Pan-English Scripted Originals Head Rola Bauer Exits appeared first on TheWrap.

The first series to go into development under the pact is “Squad Games” (working title), a competition series where celebrities and their real-life BFFs go on an exotic getaway and participate in wild challenges. The project is loosely inspired on Hall’s 2017 film “Girls Trip,” which she starred in with Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith and Tiffany Haddish.

“I’m so excited for this new partnership with MGM,” Hall said in a statement. “I’m positive that the relationship between Rh Negative and their team will be an incredibly supportive and productive one and I’m thrilled about what we have in the works.”

Hall is best known for starring in franchises including “The Best Man,” “Think Like a Man” and the first four of the “Scary Movie” films. She’s worked alongside Kevin Hart, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, and Nicole Kidman.

In addition to “Girls Trip,” Hall starred in the the indie hit “Support the Girls,” for which she became the first African-American actress to ever win a New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress.

Under her Rh Negative banner, Hall has starred in and produced the dark comedy “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul” which was sold to Focus Features and became the second highest sale out of Sundance Film Festival in 2022, opposite Sterling K. Brown, which earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination; and occult drama “Master” for Prime Video.

Hall will next appear in Searchlight Pictures’ original sci-fi rock opera “O’Dessa” and star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film. She is repped by Independent Artist Group.

MGM Alternative’s current unscripted shows include The Voice (NBC), Survivor (CBS), Shark Tank (ABC), Beat Shazam (FOX), Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? (Prime Video), Wish List Games (Prime Video), Generation Gap (ABC), in addition to the Gladiators franchise.

Amazon MGM Studios also owns Evolution Media, which produces Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” and “Vanderpump Rules,” and Big Fish Entertainment, which produces On Patrol Live (Reelz), Honest Renovations (Roku), Hallmark Christmas Cruise (Hallmark), and Ugliest House in America (HGTV).

“Ever since we saw Regina Hall co-hosting the Academy Awards two years ago, we knew she had something special that would resonate with reality fans,” MGM Alternative general manager Barry Poznick added. “Her humour, honesty, creativity and style of storytelling make her a perfect partner as we continue to expand MGM Alternative’s slate of premium unscripted programming.”

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The partnership with the tech giant will give Spotter’s clients access to new IP and monetization opportunities, ranging from content development to retail and more. It will also allow them to extend their content and creativity through new channels, such as Amazon MGM Studios, Prime Video, Twitch and Amazon Live.

Financial terms of Amazon’s investment were not disclosed.

According to Nielsen, creators accounted for more than 1 billion hours of YouTube content streamed globally on connected TVs each day as of February.

“Spotter’s track record of empowering Creators is exceptional in our industry. We are thrilled to join forces to support the Creator economy in innovative ways whether it’s on Prime Video or via our dynamic commerce offerings,” Amazon MGM Studios TV head Vernon sanders said in a statement. “This initiative will give us the opportunity to bring even more compelling content to our global customers, while fostering the growth of today’s most influential Creators, by forging new opportunities for them to thrive.”

Founded in 2019, Spotter Capital offers customized content licensing for creators, an AI-powered creative suite called Spotter Studio to help drive viewership, engagement, and monetization opportunities, and Spotter Ads, an advertising insight and analytics platform to connect creators with brands.

The company has a premium catalog of over 725,000 videos that is generating more than 88 billion monthly watch-time minutes. To date, Spotter has provided over $940 million to support creators.

“We are excited to partner with Amazon and take our mission even further, offering our Creators exceptional opportunities to monetize their brand, content, and build lasting connections with audiences,” Spotter founder and CEO Aaron DeBevoise added. “Amazon is forward-thinking in recognizing the immense potential of the Creator economy, and together, we’re excited to explore new opportunities to invest in Creators and drive deeper engagement and growth.”

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