華納兄弟探索 (WBD) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Warner Bros. Discovery First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

女士們、先生們，歡迎參加華納兄弟探索頻道 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）

Additionally, please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded.

此外，請注意，今天的電話會議正在錄音。

I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Andrew Slabin, Executive Vice President, Global Investor Strategy. Sir, you may begin.

我現在將會議交給全球投資者策略執行副總裁安德魯‧斯萊賓 (Andrew Slabin) 先生主持。先生，您可以開始了。

Good morning and thank you for joining us for Warner Bros. Discovery's Q1 Earnings Call. Joining me today is David Zaslav, President and Chief Executive Officer; Gunnar Wiedenfels, Chief Financial Officer; and JB Perrette; CEO and President, Global Streaming and Games.

早安，感謝您參加我們華納兄弟探索頻道的第一季財報電話會議。今天與我一起出席的是總裁兼執行長 David Zaslav； Gunnar Wiedenfels，財務長；和 JB 佩雷特；全球串流媒體和遊戲執行長兼總裁。

Today's presentation will include forward-looking statements that we made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements may include comments regarding the company's future business plans, prospects and financial performance and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations.

今天的演示將包括我們根據 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》的安全港條款做出的前瞻性陳述。導致實際結果與我們的預期有重大差異的不確定性。

For additional information on factors that could affect these expectations, please see the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and its reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K.

有關可能影響這些預期的因素的更多信息，請參閱該公司向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，包括但不限於該公司最新的 10-K 表年度報告及其 10-Q 表報告和表格8- K。

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to David.

有了這個，我想把電話轉給大衛。

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. As we kicked off the new year, our focus was simple: to continue building this company for the future, recognizing that it's not business as usual and that we are transforming ourselves for what's next in an industry undergoing tremendous disruption largely driven by technological innovation impacting consumer behavior. And we're embracing that innovation here at Warner Bros. Discovery with bold and courageous decision-making.

大家好，感謝您加入我們。當我們開始新的一年時，我們的重點很簡單：繼續為未來建造這家公司，認識到一切都與往常不同，我們正在為這個行業的下一步進行轉型，這個行業正在經歷巨大的顛覆，這主要是由技術創新影響消費者行為。我們正在華納兄弟探索頻道透過大膽而勇敢的決策來擁抱這種創新。

To that end, we've had a productive start of the year. We are pleased to see positive momentum building in several critical areas. Most notably, Max is gaining subscriber traction in all regions, adding 2 million subs this quarter with our total Direct-to-Consumer subscriber count nearing the 100 million mark. And while our U.S. subs will be impacted by some seasonality, particularly related to sports in Q2, we're on track for continued robust international growth this quarter and new subscriber highs through the remainder of the year.

為此，我們今年取得了富有成效的開局。我們很高興看到幾個關鍵領域正在形成積極勢頭。最值得注意的是，Max 在所有地區都獲得了用戶關注，本季增加了 200 萬訂閱者，我們的直接面向消費者訂閱者總數接近 1 億大關。雖然我們的美國訂閱者將受到一些季節性的影響，特別是與第二季度體育相關的影響，但我們預計在本季度實現持續強勁的國際增長，並在今年剩餘時間內創下新的訂閱者新高。

We're also gaining ground in ad sales with an acceleration in Direct-to-Consumer and sequential improvement in linear this quarter, helped in part by a record March Madness men's basketball tournament and steadier overall ratings.

我們在廣告銷售方面也取得了進展，本季直接面向消費者的加速和線性的連續改善在一定程度上得益於創紀錄的瘋狂三月男子籃球錦標賽和更穩定的整體收視率。

At the same time, we're taking meaningful steps to rebuild our Studios as the cornerstone of our storytelling engine and we're proud of the recent creative successes that have supported our #1 box office share this year, including Wonka, Dune: Part Two and Godzilla X Kong, and we're excited about the quality and breadth of our future pipeline.

同時，我們正在採取有意義的步驟來重建我們的工作室，作為我們講故事引擎的基石，我們對最近的創意成功感到自豪，這些成功支持了我們今年排名第一的票房份額，包括《旺卡》、《沙丘：部分》 《2》和《哥吉拉 X 金剛》，我們對未來產品線的品質和廣度感到興奮。

We're also leaning into the ways that new technologies like data-driven systems and AI can improve our consumer offerings and enable us to run our businesses more productively and effectively. This is one of our top priorities.

我們也致力於研究數據驅動系統和人工智慧等新技術如何改善我們的消費者產品，並使我們能夠更有效率地經營我們的業務。這是我們的首要任務之一。

Regarding the balance sheet, we continued to see tangible results from our focus on transformation and efficiency. Even in our seasonally weakest free cash flow generation quarter, our free cash flow improved by $1.3 billion year-over-year to roughly $400 million in Q1 and $7.5 billion in trailing 12-month free cash flow. And we will continue to opportunistically manage our capital structure, evidenced by this morning's debt tender announcement.

在資產負債表方面，我們持續看到聚焦轉型和效率的實質成果。即使在自由現金流產生季節性最弱的季度，我們的自由現金流在第一季也比去年同期成長了 13 億美元，達到約 4 億美元，過去 12 個月的自由現金流為 75 億美元。我們將繼續機會主義地管理我們的資本結構，今天上午的債務招標公告證明了這一點。

While we've accomplished a lot over the last 2 years, we're still just scratching the surface of our long list of to-dos that we see as catalyst for change, and ultimately, levers of growth for Warner Bros. Discovery. The current media landscape is increasingly dynamic, and in response, we've had to make some tough, and at times, unpopular decisions, but we are doing what we believe is necessary to best position the company for the future. And while transformation success is not easily measured in short-term months or even quarters, we're very confident in the strength of our assets and believe we will see both strategic and financial progress in the quarters ahead.

雖然我們在過去兩年中取得了許多成就，但我們仍然只是觸及了一長串待辦事項的表面，我們將其視為變革的催化劑，並最終成為華納兄弟探索公司的成長槓桿。目前的媒體格局日益動態，為此，我們必須做出一些艱難的、有時甚至不受歡迎的決定，但我們正在做我們認為必要的事情，以便為公司的未來做好最佳定位。雖然轉型的成功很難在短期甚至幾季內衡量，但我們對我們的資產實力非常有信心，並相信我們將在未來幾季看到策略和財務方面的進展。

I'll briefly touch on a few key operational milestones and objectives as we look out over the near-term landscape. On Direct-to-Consumer, this is a pivotal and critical year for Max with an aggressive relaunch and rollout underway that will meaningfully expand our global presence and growth potential. Since the start of the year, we've expanded from a single market in the U.S. to 39 countries and territories with the launch of Latin America. And over the next several weeks, we will roll the service out in over 25 additional markets across Europe, including our first new markets, France and Belgium, with more to follow.

在我們展望近期情況時，我將簡要介紹一些關鍵的營運里程碑和目標。在直接面向消費者方面，對於 Max 來說，今年是關鍵的一年，我們正在進行積極的重新啟動和推廣，這將有意義地擴大我們的全球影響力和成長潛力。自今年年初以來，隨著拉丁美洲的推出，我們已從美國的單一市場擴展到 39 個國家和地區。在接下來的幾週內，我們將在歐洲超過 25 個其他市場推出這項服務，其中包括我們的第一個新市場法國和比利時，後續將有更多市場推出。

And we're launching it ahead of the Paris Olympics. Max will be the only place where viewers across Europe will be able to watch every part of the Olympic Games.

我們將在巴黎奧運會之前推出它。 Max 將成為歐洲觀眾能夠觀看奧運會各個部分的唯一場所。

Our goal in 2024 is to drive top line improvements and build upon the profitability we have achieved last year while positioning us to achieve our $1 billion EBITDA target for 2025 with further growth beyond. And we're off a strong start with nearly $90 million positive EBITDA generated this quarter despite absorbing some of the launch cost of LatAm. But more importantly, we're laying the critical groundwork and infrastructure from which we expect to build a broader and more profitable Direct-to-Consumer segment.

我們 2024 年的目標是推動營收改善，並在去年實現的獲利能力的基礎上再接再厲，同時實現 2025 年 10 億美元 EBITDA 的目標，並進一步實現成長。儘管吸收了拉丁美洲的部分啟動成本，但我們還是取得了良好的開端，本季產生了近 9,000 萬美元的正 EBITDA。但更重要的是，我們正在奠定關鍵的基礎和基礎設施，我們希望以此為基礎建立更廣泛、更有利可圖的直接面向消費者細分市場。

Three key metrics underpin our strategic and financial objectives for Direct-to-Consumer. The first is subscriber growth. As I said, we're nearing the 100 million mark and see strong indicators of continued growth in Q2 and the remainder of the year.

三個關鍵指標支撐著我們直接面對消費者的策略和財務目標。首先是用戶成長。正如我所說，我們已接近 1 億大關，並看到第二季和今年剩餘時間持續成長的強勁跡象。

We're also leveraging our best practices from the U.S. and LatAm rollouts, such as our strongest content slate yet, more partnerships in place to accelerate our rollout and an enhanced subscriber migration experience that reduces onetime churn and more optimized marketing investment.

我們也利用我們在美國和拉丁美洲推出的最佳實踐，例如我們迄今為止最強大的內容板、更多的合作夥伴關係以加速我們的推出以及增強的訂戶遷移體驗，以減少一次性流失和更優化的行銷投資。

Second, engagement and monetization. Thanks to a combination of stronger content and product enhancements, engagement reached an all-time high and we are taking meaningful steps to grow it further. The team continues to improve the product to deliver more personalized consumer experience, feature set and more impactful content offerings.

其次，參與度和貨幣化。由於更強大的內容和產品增強的結合，參與度達到了歷史最高水平，我們正在採取有意義的措施來進一步提高它。團隊不斷改進產品，以提供更個人化的消費者體驗、功能集和更具影響力的內容產品。

Additionally, we grew global ARPU 4% in the quarter. This, in part, reflects a greater mix shift of lower ARPU international subscribers as compared to U.S. subscribers. This quarter, U.S. ARPU grew by a healthy 8%.

此外，本季我們的全球 ARPU 成長了 4%。這在一定程度上反映出，與美國用戶相比，每位用戶平均收入 (ARPU) 較低的國際用戶的組合發生了更大的變化。本季度，美國 ARPU 健康成長 8%。

While we still have lots to do, I am pleased to say the content lineup on Max over the next 12 to 18 months is one of the strongest ever. March was particularly strong with March Madness and Quiet on the Set, a huge hit coming out of our ID networks. And in Q2, we'll benefit from the third season of critically acclaimed series, Hacks; the streaming premiere of Iron Claw and Dune: Part Two; Champions League in LatAm; and the June 16 premiere of season 2 of House of the Dragon, which was one of the most successful series in terms of engagement and subscriber acquisition, just to name a few.

雖然我們還有很多工作要做，但我很高興地說 Max 未來 12 到 18 個月的內容陣容是有史以來最強大的內容陣容之一。三月的表現尤其強勁，包括《瘋狂三月》和《片場安靜》，它們在我們的 ID 網路中大受歡迎。在第二季度，我們將受益於廣受好評的劇集《Hacks》的第三季； 《鐵爪》和《沙丘：第二部》的串流首映；拉丁美洲冠軍聯賽； 6 月 16 日首播的《龍之屋》第二季，僅舉幾例，該劇在參與度和訂閱用戶獲取方面是最成功的劇集之一。

In addition to House of the Dragon, over the next 18 months, Max will premiere a robust combination of high-impact global original series, including season 3 of the White Lotus; season 2 of The Last of Us, season 3 of And Just Like That; along with highly anticipated tent-pole original series, including The Penguin; Dune: Prophecy, It: Welcome to Derry; A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, a spinoff of the Game of Thrones franchise, plus an ongoing slate of fresh new Warner Bros. theatrical releases, such as Godzilla X Kong, Furiosa, Beetlejuice, Joker 2 and more.

除了《龍之家》之外，在接下來的 18 個月裡，麥克斯還將推出一系列具有高影響力的全球原創劇集，其中包括《白蓮教》第三季； 《最後生還者》第 2 季、《就這樣》第 3 季；以及備受期待的原創系列，包括《企鵝》；沙丘：預言，它：歡迎來到德里； 《七國之夜》是《權力的遊戲》系列的衍生劇，此外還有華納兄弟正在上映的一系列新電影，例如《哥吉拉X 金剛》、《福瑞歐莎》、《甲蟲汁》、 《小丑2》等。

The third metric is churn, which, while still above our longer-term target, continues to trend downwards, and in fact, was at an all-time low in the U.S. at the end of the first quarter. Habituality and diversity of viewing are the most correlated inputs to churn, and we saw continued healthy improvements in both in the first quarter. And with our even stronger content lineup coming over the next few quarters as well as our ongoing user experience enhancements, we feel confident about our trajectory.

第三個指標是客戶流失率，雖然仍高於我們的長期目標，但仍呈下降趨勢，事實上，在第一季末，客戶流失率在美國處於歷史最低水平。觀看習慣和多樣性是與流失最相關的因素，我們在第一季看到這兩者持續健康改善。隨著我們在未來幾季推出更強大的內容陣容以及我們不斷增強的用戶體驗，我們對我們的發展軌跡充滿信心。

As you know, I have been a big proponent of bundling. And yesterday, together with Disney, we announced a first-of-its-kind offering that gives U.S. consumers the option of an ad-lite or ad-free package that includes Max, Disney+ and Hulu. The product will go live later this summer and we couldn't be more excited. Two of the world's most storied content companies are joining forces to deliver consumers the best and most diverse offering of entertainment at a very attractive price.

如你所知，我一直是捆綁銷售的大力支持者。昨天，我們與迪士尼一起推出了首個同類產品，讓美國消費者可以選擇少廣告或無廣告套餐，其中包括 Max、Disney+ 和 Hulu。該產品將於今年夏天晚些時候上線，我們非常興奮。世界上兩家最著名的內容公司正在聯手，以極具吸引力的價格為消費者提供最好、最多樣化的娛樂產品。

And in addition to the unprecedented consumer value this product will provide, there's real business benefits as well. The modest overlap between the 3 services means we have an opportunity to drive incremental subscriber growth. And also because the consumers will have to retain all three, Disney+, Hulu and Max, to take advantage of the price value in the offering, we expect this product will help increase retention and lower churn and thus support higher customer lifetime values.

除了該產品將提供前所未有的消費者價值之外，還有真正的商業利益。這 3 項服務之間的適度重疊意味著我們有機會推動用戶增量成長。而且，由於消費者必須保留所有三個產品（Disney+、Hulu 和Max）才能利用產品中的價格價值，因此我們預計該產品將有助於提高保留率並降低客戶流失率，從而支持更高的客戶終身價值。

And finally, over time, as the bundle gets more traction, we will benefit from increased efficiencies and greater marketing effectiveness.

最後，隨著時間的推移，隨著捆綁包獲得更大的吸引力，我們將受益於效率的提高和行銷效果的提高。

The bundle will go live later this summer and we're excited about what it could mean for our business going forward.

該捆綁包將於今年夏天晚些時候上線，我們對它對我們未來業務的意義感到興奮。

Of course, the heart and soul of our company is storytelling, and we are using all the formidable assets and the greatest creative minds to tell the best stories in the best ways possible as we strive to return the luster to Warner Bros. Pictures. Clearly, this takes time and it's not something that can be accomplished overnight. And the heavy lifting taking place under Mike and Pam's leadership at Warner Bros. Pictures and under Peter and James at DC isn't something that you see fully reflected yet in our financials. However, we are confident it will become more apparent with time.

當然，我們公司的核心和靈魂是說故事，我們正在利用所有強大的資產和最偉大的創意思維，以盡可能最好的方式講述最好的故事，努力恢復華納兄弟影業的光彩。顯然，這需要時間，不是一朝一夕就能完成的事。在華納兄弟影業公司的邁克和帕姆的領導下以及在華盛頓特區的彼得和詹姆斯的領導下所發生的繁重工作尚未在我們的財務數據中得到充分反映。然而，我們相信隨著時間的推移，這種情況會變得更加明顯。

And in fact, we are seeing some strong proof points of our bold, more disciplined approach while we continue working through the remainder of the slate that was in place when we took over the business. Warner Bros. generated more than $1.8 billion in global box office since the start of the year, and it was the first studio this year to reach $1 billion in both overseas and worldwide box office.

事實上，在我們繼續處理接管業務時已有的剩餘工作的同時，我們看到了一些強有力的證據，證明我們採取了大膽、更有紀律的方法。自今年年初以來，華納兄弟的全球票房收入超過 18 億美元，並且是今年第一家海外和全球票房都達到 10 億美元的電影公司。

And they've got a great slate in the works. This morning, I'm excited to announce that the team is now in the early stages of script development for the first of the new Lord of the Rings movies, which we anticipate releasing in 2026 and will explore storylines yet to be told. Peter Jackson and his long-time writing partners, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, are producing and will be involved every step of the way. Lord of the Rings is one of the most successful and revered franchises in history and presents a significant opportunity for our theatrical business.

他們的工作正在進行中。今天早上，我很高興地宣布，團隊目前正處於《魔戒》新電影第一部劇本開發的早期階段，我們預計該電影將於 2026 年上映，並將探索尚未講述的故事情節。彼得傑克森和他的長期寫作夥伴弗蘭沃爾什和菲利帕博恩斯正在製作並將參與整個過程的每一步。 《魔戒》是史上最成功、最受尊敬的系列電影之一，為我們的戲劇業務提供了重大機會。

Warner Bros. Discovery's great storytelling IP, including Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Superman and many other parts of the DC Universe are largely underused. We are hard at work fixing that. It's a core value and a key advantage for us. We have the characters and stories people love and yearn for everywhere in the world in every language.

華納兄弟探索頻道的精彩說故事 IP，包括《哈利波特》、《魔戒》、《超人》和 DC 宇宙的許多其他部分，在很大程度上都沒有充分利用。我們正在努力解決這個問題。這是我們的核心價值和關鍵優勢。我們以各種語言提供世界各地人們喜愛和嚮往的人物和故事。

Unfortunately, the Studio's Q1 financials were overshadowed by the tough comp at games following the great performance of Hogwarts Legacy last year and the disappointing release of Suicide Squad in Q1 in our gaming group.

不幸的是，繼去年《霍格華茲遺產》的出色表現以及我們遊戲組第一季度發布的《自殺小隊》令人失望之後，遊戲公司的艱難競爭給工作室第一季度的財務業績蒙上陰影。

On the advertising front, while total company ad sales were down 7% in the quarter, we continue to see sequential improvement Q2 to date led by what we anticipate will be our biggest Direct-to-Consumer quarter ever. As we highlighted last quarter and underpinning some of this improvement is the resiliency of international linear advertising, primarily from our free-to-air channels in EMEA, which outperformed in the quarter with positive revenue growth. This was primarily driven by robust revenue growth in Poland, Italy and Germany. These firmly entrenched legacy broadcast assets continue to serve as highly effective platforms for advertisers to reach consumers. And while we just launched our international ad-lite offering in LatAm with EMEA soon to come, these platforms will be critical to enhance our portfolio offerings.

在廣告方面，雖然本季度公司廣告總銷售額下降了 7%，但我們仍然看到迄今為止第二季度的環比改善，我們預計這將是我們有史以來最大的直接面向消費者的季度。正如我們上季度所強調的那樣，國際線性廣告的彈性在一定程度上支撐了這種改進，這些廣告主要來自我們在歐洲、中東和非洲的免費頻道，該廣告在本季度表現出色，收入正增長。這主要是由波蘭、義大利和德國強勁的收入成長所推動的。這些根深蒂固的傳統廣播資產繼續作為廣告商接觸消費者的高效平台。雖然我們剛剛在拉丁美洲推出了國際廣告精簡版服務，歐洲、中東和非洲地區也即將推出，但這些平台對於增強我們的產品組合至關重要。

While linear has obvious secular challenges, we continue to see select opportunities. For example, U.S. Networks production hubs can be sourced as a popular high ROI content for both linear and streaming. This is a benefit we will pursue where it makes sense, particularly as a more intelligent Max platform helps to inform how we allocate content budgets across specific genres and verticals.

雖然線性面臨著明顯的長期挑戰，但我們仍然看到了精選的機會。例如，美國網路製作中心可以作為線性和串流媒體的流行高投資回報率內容進行採購。這是我們將在有意義的地方追求的好處，特別是當更聰明的 Max 平台有助於告知我們如何在特定類型和垂直領域分配內容預算時。

For example, Max's hit, Quiet on the Set, which I mentioned earlier, was created by the team at ID, became the most watched title on streaming in its debut week with a massive 1.2 billion minutes of viewing time. The true crime vertical has great traction on Max. And by leveraging the production scale at ID, we will be able to curate additional series very effectively and efficiently that work across Max and our other distribution platforms.

例如，我前面提到的 Max 的熱門作品《Quiet on the Set》是由 ID 團隊製作的，在首周就成為串流媒體上收視率最高的作品，觀看時間高達 12 億分鐘。真正的犯罪垂直領域對麥克斯有著巨大的吸引力。透過利用 ID 的製作規模，我們將能夠非常有效且有效率地策劃在 Max 和我們其他發行平台上運行的其他系列。

I mentioned AI earlier. We recognize that AI is going to have an increasing impact on society and our industry, and we intend to take full advantage to enhance the products and experiences we deliver to consumers and to achieve greater efficiency company-wide. We are focused particularly on improvements to our ad targeting and recommendation algorithms. Our AI-based understanding of our customers and content are being activated in our product, marketing and ad sales, which you'll hear more about at our next week's Upfront.

我之前提到過人工智慧。我們意識到人工智慧將對社會和產業產生越來越大的影響，我們打算充分利用人工智慧來增強我們為消費者提供的產品和體驗，並在全公司範圍內實現更高的效率。我們特別關注廣告定位和推薦演算法的改進。我們基於人工智慧對客戶和內容的理解正在我們的產品、行銷和廣告銷售中得到激活，您將在下週的 Upfront 中聽到更多相關資訊。

Since the initial launch of Max, we've been using AI and machine learning to personalize content discovery. We've continuously innovated to improve our models to present the right content in front of our consumers at the right time, and this is helping us to drive better content diversity on Max.

自 Max 首次推出以來，我們一直在使用人工智慧和機器學習來個人化內容發現。我們不斷創新，改進我們的模型，以便在正確的時間向消費者呈現正確的內容，這有助於我們在 Max 上推動更好的內容多樣性。

We've also been leveraging AI to more efficiently and swiftly identify and optimize ad-break opportunities in our premium HBO content, which typically does not have natural ad breaks. This has enabled us to offer the premium content on our ad-lite tier and it's also allowed us to create variable ad load for our content as we monetize it using multiple tiers and platforms.

我們也利用人工智慧更有效率、更迅速地識別和優化優質 HBO 內容中的廣告插播機會，這些內容通常沒有自然的廣告插播。這使我們能夠在我們的精簡廣告層上提供優質內容，並且還使我們能夠在使用多個層和平台對其進行貨幣化時為我們的內容創建可變的廣告負載。

And we have dozens of other experiments across a spectrum of areas ranging from corporate and developer efficiency to marketing optimization and targeting. All this experimentation is guided by clearly defined AI principles. We believe strongly the creativity and the kind of empathy and humanity necessary to create world-class storytelling can only be found in people, not systems. We also believe that AI is another in a long line of technology and tools that will enable creators to innovate and evolve how we tell stories and inspire audiences.

我們還進行了數十項其他實驗，涉及從企業和開發人員效率到行銷優化和定位等一系列領域。所有這些實驗都以明確定義的人工智慧原則為指導。我們堅信，創造世界級故事所需的創造力、同理心和人性只能在人身上找到，而不是在系統中找到。我們也相信，人工智慧是眾多技術和工具中的又一個，它將使創作者能夠創新和發展我們講述故事和激勵觀眾的方式。

Before I close, I want to mention a topic I know is top of mind for everyone and that's the NBA. We've enjoyed a strong partnership with the NBA for almost 4 decades. We're in continuing conversations with them now and we're hopeful that we'll be able to reach an agreement that makes sense for both sides. We've had a lot of time to prepare for this negotiation and we have strategies in place for the various potential outcomes.

在結束之前，我想提一個我知道每個人都最關心的話題，那就是 NBA。近 4 年來，我們與 NBA 一直保持著牢固的合作關係。我們現在正在與他們繼續對話，我們希望能夠達成一項對雙方都有意義的協議。我們花了很多時間來準備這次談判，並且針對各種潛在結果制定了策略。

However, now is not the time to discuss any of this since we are in active negotiations with the league, and under our current deal with the NBA, we have matching rights that allow us to match third-party offers before the NBA enters into an agreement with them. With that in mind, please understand that this is as much as we're prepared to say about this topic today.

然而，現在還不是討論這些問題的時候，因為我們正在與聯盟進行積極談判，並且根據我們目前與 NBA 的協議，我們擁有匹配權，允許我們在 NBA 簽訂協議之前匹配第三方報價。 。考慮到這一點，請理解，這就是我們今天準備就這個主題說的內容。

These are challenging times for our industry, there's no question. But the reality is, and I tell my team this all the time, there isn't a more exciting moment to be in this business. We continue to do the hard work to transform our company to drive meaningful growth in the future. We are positioning ourselves to take full advantage of opportunities that we see around us. And we're more confident than ever in our assets and our playbook.

毫無疑問，對我們的產業來說，現在是充滿挑戰的時期。但現實是，我一直告訴我的團隊，這個行業沒有比這更令人興奮的時刻了。我們將繼續努力實現公司轉型，以推動未來的有意義的成長。我們正在定位自己，以充分利用周圍看到的機會。我們對我們的資產和策略比以往任何時候都更有信心。

With that, I'll turn it over to Gunnar and he'll walk you through the financials for the quarter.

接下來，我會將其交給 Gunnar，他將向您介紹本季的財務狀況。

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin by spending a minute or two on the balance sheet and highlighting the key factors that underpinned the $1.3 billion positive year-over-year swing in Q1 free cash flow in what is our seasonally weakest cash production quarter and where we typically see more cash outflows than inflows.

謝謝大衛，大家早安。首先，我想花一兩分鐘介紹資產負債表，並強調支撐第一季自由現金流同比13 億美元正幅波動的關鍵因素，這是我們現金生產季節性最弱的季度，也是我們的目標。

Namely, number one, the continued benefit from the many initiatives to improve working capital, which we are still in the early innings of realizing. Number two, the more disciplined and analytical approach to content investment and allocation. Number three, meaningfully lower cash restructuring costs. And number four, lower cash interest expense as a result of the more than $6 billion of debt we repaid over the past 12 months.

也就是說，第一，持續受益於許多改善營運資本的舉措，我們仍處於實現這一目標的早期階段。第二，內容投資和分配的方法更加嚴謹和分析。第三，顯著降低現金重組成本。第四，由於我們在過去 12 個月償還了超過 60 億美元的債務，因此現金利息支出降低。

The primary use of our free cash flow remains delevering the balance sheet. We remain committed to our gross leverage target range of 2.5x to 3x, and I'm confident that we will continue to make progress towards further delevering this year. We paid down over $1 billion of debt during the first quarter, including nearly $400 million from open market purchases at a discount.

我們自由現金流的主要用途仍然是去槓桿化資產負債表。我們仍然致力於 2.5 倍至 3 倍的總槓桿目標範圍，我相信今年我們將繼續在進一步去槓桿化方面取得進展。我們在第一季償還了超過 10 億美元的債務，其中包括透過公開市場折扣購買的近 4 億美元債務。

I continue to view our debt stack as an important and valuable resource. Our weighted average maturity is roughly 15 years with very manageable average annual maturities for the foreseeable future with maturities in any given year, significantly less than what our annual free cash flows have been even normalized for the strikes. Our debt is virtually all fixed with an average cost of 4.6%, in line with the yield on comparable U.S. long-dated treasury.

我仍然將我們的債務堆疊視為重要且寶貴的資源。我們的加權平均期限約為 15 年，在可預見的未來，任何特定年份的期限都非常易於管理，遠低於我們因罷工而標準化的年度自由現金流。我們的債務幾乎全部固定，平均成本為 4.6%，與美國同類長期國債的收益率一致。

Based on the difference of current market value to book value reflecting the current rate environment versus when issued, we have a $6 billion asset in our debt stack. And you should expect that we will begin to be more opportunistic in monetizing this asset as evidenced by the debt tender that we announced this morning. We intend to repurchase outstanding debt using up to $1.75 billion of cash.

根據反映當前利率環境與發行時的當前市場價值與帳面價值的差異，我們的債務堆疊中有 60 億美元的資產。您應該預料到，我們將開始更機會主義地將這項資產貨幣化，正如我們今天早上宣布的債務招標所證明的那樣。我們打算使用最多 17.5 億美元的現金回購未償債務。

Turning to the segment results, I'd like to provide some brief commentary to supplement the discussions in the earnings release. Starting with Studios. The $400 million-plus year-over-year decline in Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp we faced in games against the success of Hogwart's Legacy last year in the first quarter in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA during the first quarter. This overshadowed an otherwise very bright spot from the contributions of recently released theatrical films where we have had excellent traction to start the year.

談到分部業績，我想提供一些簡短的評論，以補充收益發布中的討論。從工作室開始。第一季比去年同期下降4 億多美元，主要是因為去年第一季我們在與去年成功的《霍格華茲遺產》的比賽中面臨著非常艱難的競爭，再加上上個季度令人失望的《自殺突擊隊》發布，我們受損，導致第一季 EBITDA 受到 2 億美元的影響。這掩蓋了最近上映的院線電影貢獻的一個非常亮點，這些電影在今年伊始就獲得了極好的吸引力。

I'm excited that we have broken ground on a significant expansion project at our world-class production facility in Leavesden, U.K., a great example of where we are making long-term investments at the heart of our company with an attractive return profile.

我很高興我們在英國利維斯登的世界級生產工廠破土動工了一個重大擴建項目，這是我們在公司核心進行長期投資並具有有吸引力的回報的一個很好的例子。

It's also another example of how our new [One WBD] processes are supporting the Studio leadership team and combining creative excellence with overall financial discipline. While the Studio business will always characterize by hits and misses, with these more rigorous processes in place, I have no doubt that we should realize more upside to the bottom line with our hits while reducing the bottom line drag from our misses.

這也是我們新的 [One WBD] 流程如何支援工作室領導團隊並將卓越創意與整體財務紀律相結合的另一個例子。雖然工作室業務總是以成功和失敗為特徵，但有了這些更嚴格的流程，我毫不懷疑我們應該透過我們的成功實現更多的利潤成長，同時減少我們的失敗對底線的拖累。

Turning to D2C. We have successfully migrated the HBO Max subscriber base in Latin America over the past couple of months. To be clear, this was no easy feat with 160 platform integrations that were required to migrate existing subscribers to the new service. This requires significant management time and resources and we transitioned subscribers with better-than-expected migration-related churn in part attributable to the best practices from the U.S. relaunch.

轉向D2C。過去幾個月，我們成功遷移了拉丁美洲的 HBO Max 用戶群。需要明確的是，這並非易事，需要整合 160 個平台才能將現有訂戶遷移到新服務。這需要大量的管理時間和資源，而我們遷移的訂閱者的遷移相關流失率好於預期，部分原因在於美國重新推出的最佳實踐。

An important outcome for LatAm relaunch is the ability to now offer more consumer-friendly pricing and packaging across ad-lite, ad-free and premium tiers with more flexibility in subscription options and additional paths to monetize the base. For example, installment billing for consumers who are unable to pay their full multi-month subscription price upfront. We will apply a similar approach to customer segmentation in EMEA.

拉丁美洲重新推出的一個重要成果是現在能夠在低廣告、無廣告和高級層級提供更適合消費者的定價和包裝，並在訂閱選項和其他基礎貨幣化途徑方面提供更大的靈活性。例如，為無法預先支付全部多月訂閱價格的消費者提供分期付款。我們將在歐洲、中東和非洲地區應用類似的客戶細分方法。

Levers of D2C growth include our significant opportunity to further scale the international subscriber base while improving worldwide monetization. As we push further into this geographic expansion, we are taking a more holistic view of our distribution deals with partners that both distribute our linear content offering as well as wholesale our Max streaming service. Thus far, we have, in many cases, captured greater overall value to WBD while managing the transition from linear to streaming.

D2C 成長的槓桿包括我們進一步擴大國際用戶群同時提高全球貨幣化的重大機會。隨著我們進一步推進這一地域擴張，我們正在更全面地審視與合作夥伴的分銷協議，這些合作夥伴既分銷我們的線性內容產品，也批發我們的 Max 串流服務。到目前為止，在許多情況下，我們在管理從線性到流式的過渡的同時，為 WBD 帶來了更大的整體價值。

And with our strong start in Q1, I expect us to remain profitable in the D2C segment during 2024 despite the heavy launch investments, and I remain fully confident in our path to achieve our $1 billion-plus EBITDA target for 2025 and our growth ambitions thereafter.

鑑於我們在第一季度的強勁開局，我預計，儘管推出了大量投資，我們仍將在2024 年在D2C 領域保持盈利，並且我對我們實現2025 年10 億美元以上EBITDA 目標以及此後的增長雄心的道路充滿信心。

One final note on D2C. Content revenue was down 46% during Q1. And as a reminder, we will have a more difficult comp in Q2, both of which are the product of timing of output deals renewed last year, the availability of content as well as our content utilization choices.

關於 D2C 的最後一點說明。第一季內容收入下降了 46%。提醒一下，我們在第二季將面臨更困難的競爭，這兩者都是去年更新的輸出交易時間、內容的可用性以及我們的內容利用選擇的產物。

Turning now to advertising. We did see sequential improvement, both linear and D2C, in the first quarter. Total company advertising in Q1 was down 7%, a sequential improvement of 300 basis points and was supported by a 70% growth at D2C, which is beginning to scale nicely and where we expect another record quarter in Q2. It also, in part, reflects an increasingly more holistic portfolio approach to monetizing viewership of both linear and Max, supporting our ability to offer our partners incremental reach and more customized ad solutions spanning all platforms, particularly in the U.S.

現在轉向廣告。我們確實在第一季看到了線性和 D2C 的連續改善。第一季公司廣告總量下降了 7%，環比提高了 300 個基點，並受到 D2C 70% 增長的支撐，D2C 開始良好擴展，我們預計第二季度將再創紀錄的季度業績。它還在一定程度上反映了透過線性和Max 的收視率實現貨幣化的日益全面的投資組合方法，支持我們為合作夥伴提供涵蓋所有平台（尤其是在美國）的增量覆蓋範圍和更客製化的廣告解決方案的能力。

The trend in quarter-to-date linear cash pacings in the U.S. continues to improve modestly even excluding the positive impact of the NCAA Men's Final 4 and the championship game. As a reminder, we will benefit from having these games exclusive to WBD this year, but we do not have the Stanley Cup Finals and the exit of the AT&T SportsNet will continue to be a headwind to revenues with marginal profit impact through the end of Q3.

即使排除 NCAA 男子四強賽和冠軍賽的正面影響，美國季度至今的線性現金節奏趨勢仍繼續小幅改善。提醒一下，我們將受益於今年 WBD 獨家舉辦的這些比賽，但我們沒有史丹利盃決賽，而且 AT&T SportsNet 的退出將繼續成為收入的逆風，對第三季末的邊際利潤產生影響。

Internationally, EMEA continues to be a standout bright spot, particularly in our free-to-air market. Advertising revenue grew nicely in Q1 and we're seeing a continuation of this trend in Q2. Poland, Italy and Germany were notable out-performers among the key EMEA markets. In fact, except for the U.K. and the Nordics, advertising revenues were flat to up in virtually all EMEA market during the first quarter.

在國際上，歐洲、中東和非洲地區仍然是一個突出的亮點，特別是在我們的免費市場中。第一季廣告收入成長良好，我們在第二季看到這一趨勢的延續。波蘭、義大利和德國在歐洲、中東和非洲主要市場中表現突出。事實上，除了英國和北歐以外，第一季幾乎所有歐洲、中東和非洲市場的廣告收入均持平或上升。

Though materially smaller, Latin America has been and continues to be a different story, particularly given cyclical and secular headwinds in Brazil and Mexico, our 2 largest markets in the region. And unlike in Europe where we are a scale broadcaster in several markets, we are more exposed to the less resilient pay-TV ecosystem that is experiencing a more pronounced secular shift of advertising dollars to streaming.

儘管拉丁美洲規模較小，但它一直並將繼續是一個不同的故事，特別是考慮到我們在該地區最大的兩個市場巴西和墨西哥的周期性和長期逆風。與歐洲不同的是，我們是多個市場的規模廣播公司，我們更容易受到彈性較差的付費電視生態系統的影響，該生態系統正在經歷廣告收入向串流媒體的更明顯的長期轉變。

With Max now in the region, we have a growing ad-lite presence and are better positioned to capture a share of this migration. We look forward to updating you on our progress here, which, while early, is exceeding our expectations thus far.

隨著 Max 現在進入該地區，我們的廣告精簡版業務不斷增長，並且能夠更好地在這一遷移中分得一杯羹。我們期待向您通報我們的最新進展，雖然進展尚早，但迄今為止已經超出了我們的預期。

Finally, I'd like to update you on our continuing transformation efforts where we've made enormous progress on capturing cost efficiency throughout the company over the last few years. We continue to push forward with new initiatives and have added to the pipeline of opportunities. We now see a path to meaningfully exceed the more than $1 billion of remaining cost savings that we had previously guided to, which is on top of the more than $4 billion that we already realized through the end of 2023. I would best characterize these efforts as a continuous improvement mindset, having become muscle memory for the WBD team.

最後，我想向您介紹我們持續轉型努力的最新情況，過去幾年來，我們在整個公司的成本效率方面取得了巨大進展。我們繼續推動新舉措，並增加了機會。現在，我們看到了一條道路，可以有意義地超過我們之前指導的超過10 億美元的剩餘成本節約，這是在我們到2023 年底之前已經實現的超過40 億美元的成本節約之上的。能描述這些努力作為一種持續改進的心態，已成為 WBD 團隊的肌肉記憶。

We see tangible further benefits from consolidation of real estate facilities and taking advantage of the great talent across our global capability centers. As well, we see meaningful savings from the ongoing consolidation of one dozen global content workflow systems. As noted, identifying opportunities to utilize AI to increase productivity in all facets of business operations remains a top priority that may drive further upside to our updated cost savings target.

我們看到了房地產設施整合和利用我們全球能力中心的優秀人才帶來的進一步實實在在的好處。此外，我們也看到十幾個全球內容工作流程系統的持續整合帶來了有意義的節省。如前所述，尋找利用人工智慧提高業務運營各個方面的生產力的機會仍然是首要任務，這可能會進一步推動我們更新的成本節約目標。

I am proud of the continued progress we are making to best position Warner Bros. Discovery to respond to the changes taking place in the industry. Indeed, this demands us making difficult and bold decisions. We are focused on doing what is right for the long-term health and sustainability of the business to best serve the need of customers and partners while positioning the company to drive long-term shareholder value.

我為華納兄弟探索頻道不斷取得的進展感到自豪，以應對行業中正在發生的變化。事實上，這要求我們做出艱難而大膽的決定。我們專注於做有利於企業長期健康和永續發展的事情，以最好地滿足客戶和合作夥伴的需求，同時使公司能夠推動長期股東價值。

Now I'd like to return the call back to the operator, and David, JB and I will take your questions.

現在我想將電話回撥給接線員，我和 David、JB 將回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) We will take our first question from Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank.

（操作員說明）我們將接受德意志銀行 Bryan Kraft 提出的第一個問題。

I was wondering if you could share any additional details about the bundling relationship with Disney+ and Hulu, for example, pricing, how much marketing will be behind it and how the 2 companies are coordinating and funding the marketing activities.

我想知道您是否可以分享有關與 Disney+ 和 Hulu 捆綁關係的任何其他詳細信息，例如定價、背後的營銷力度以及兩家公司如何協調和資助營銷活動。

And related, how has the Max-Netflix bundle with Verizon performed? And will we continue to see additional domestic bundles created? And how about on the international side, are you doing anything yet outside the U.S.? Or do you plan to?

與此相關的是，Max-Netflix 與 Verizon 的捆綁銷售表現如何？我們會繼續看到更多的國內捆綁產品被創建嗎？那麼在國際方面，你們在美國以外的地方還做了什麼嗎？或者你打算這麼做嗎？

Thanks so much, Bryan. The bundle with Netflix is doing much better than expected with Verizon. And so I think it's another example where there's more strength together, and it's really driven by the need for a change in the consumer experience. We see it in all of our studies and then even on a practical basis talking to consumers. And so it's just much more efficient.

非常感謝，布萊恩。與 Netflix 的捆綁銷售表現比與 Verizon 的預期要好得多。因此，我認為這是另一個共同發揮更大力量的例子，而且它實際上是由消費者體驗改變的需求所驅動的。我們在所有研究中都看到了這一點，甚至在與消費者的實際對話中也看到了這一點。所以它的效率要高得多。

What's interesting, and I think different about the bundle with Disney is, I've been saying for a long time, we need to come together ourselves and provide a better consumer experience, a more compelling and exciting offering or there'll be other companies who'll do it for us. And there are a lot of great companies like Roku and Apple and Amazon and are doing a terrific job of aggregating services in the quest to provide a better consumer experience. It's much more efficient, better ARPU and a much better business if we can do it ourselves.

有趣的是，我認為與迪士尼捆綁的不同之處在於，我長期以來一直在說，我們需要團結起來，提供更好的消費者體驗，提供更引人注目和令人興奮的產品，否則就會有其他公司誰會為我們做這件事。 Roku、蘋果和亞馬遜等許多偉大的公司在聚合服務方面做得非常出色，以尋求提供更好的消費者體驗。如果我們能自己做的話，效率會更高，ARPU 會更好，業務也會更好。

And Disney itself is a fabulous company. They, together with us, turned 100 years old this past year. They have some of the greatest content and stories in the world. They're a global company like we are. And coming together -- an incredibly well-run company with Bob Iger, and so coming together for this bundled Disney+, Hulu and Max is really an extraordinarily positive offering. It will be very -- it will be priced well and it will be both ad-lite and ad-free.

迪士尼本身就是一家出色的公司。去年，他們和我們一起迎來了 100 歲生日。他們擁有世界上一些最偉大的內容和故事。他們和我們一樣是一家全球性公司。與鮑勃·艾格 (Bob Iger) 合作，成為一家運營極其良好的公司，因此，迪士尼+、Hulu 和 Max 的捆綁銷售確實是一項非常積極的產品。它將非常——它將定價合理，並且將是低廣告和無廣告的。

And for consumers in the U.S., I think it will be a really positive consumer experience and gives us, I think, a real advantage and opportunity. When you look at the marketplace, there's this question of distribution versus content. I've always felt that, in the long run, the best content wins. And that's why we've really focused on the creative side of our company, building the TV production business, the motion picture business, bringing the best talent back to Warner Bros. that ultimately -- and having the best TV and motion picture library, that ultimately the best content wins.

對於美國的消費者來說，我認為這將是一次非常積極的消費者體驗，並且為我們帶來了真正的優勢和機會。當你觀察市場時，你會發現分銷與內容的問題。我一直認為，從長遠來看，最好的內容會獲勝。這就是為什麼我們真正專注於公司的創意方面，建立電視製作業務和電影業務，將最優秀的人才帶回華納兄弟，最終擁有最好的電視和電影庫，最終最好的內容獲勝。

The marketplace right now has looked at the great distribution companies and have assessed that it looks like the distribution companies are going to be the companies that will be the big winners. And those are great companies, but I believe that distribution and content -- distribution companies and content -- great content companies will be winners.

目前市場已經關注了偉大的分銷公司，並評估認為分銷公司將成為大贏家。這些都是偉大的公司，但我相信發行和內容——發行公司和內容——偉大的內容公司將成為贏家。

And that's why our quest to be the best storytelling company in the world; Disney, as we look over to Bob and his leadership, is an extraordinary storytelling company, and so I think this will be a great opportunity to provide great content for a reasonable price to consumers in America.

這就是為什麼我們致力於成為世界上最好的說故事公司；在鮑伯和他的領導下，迪士尼是一家非凡的說故事公司，因此我認為這將是一個很好的機會，可以以合理的價格向美國消費者提供精彩的內容。

And I don't know, JB, you want to add to that?

我不知道，JB，你想補充嗎？

Yes. I mean, Bryan, just the only other thing I'd add, on pricing, as Dave said, we'll come out with more specific, but you should imagine it will be priced very attractively for the consumer. As a reference point, it's really working off of the Max stand-alone and the existing Disney+ and Hulu package bundle. So as a comparative basis, it will be priced very attractively for consumers.

是的。我的意思是，布萊恩，我要補充的唯一一點是，關於定價，正如戴夫所說，我們將提供更具體的信息，但你應該想像它的定價對消費者來說非常有吸引力。作為參考，它確實是在 Max 獨立版以及現有的 Disney+ 和 Hulu 捆綁包的基礎上運行的。因此，作為比較基礎，它的定價對消費者來說非常有吸引力。

The second -- on the flip side, for us, on the ARPU side, it also has a very strong deal for both parties that we feel very, very good about. And obviously, not to mention the LTV of those subscribers we expect to be significantly better than what we see today.

第二個——另一方面，對我們來說，在 ARPU 方面，它對雙方來說也有一個非常強大的協議，我們對此感覺非常非常好。顯然，更不用說我們預計這些訂戶的 LTV 會比我們今天看到的要好得多。

On the marketing, it's two-pronged. We will have a significant amount of marketing support from both parties, both third-party marketing as well as on air and our own platforms, driving to the bundle. And then at least, as importantly, the buy flows and everywhere you see people once they get into the buy flow, whether they're coming in for the bundle or they're coming in just for our stand-alone products, there's high prominence of the offering across all the buy flows on both sides, both Disney and ourselves.

在行銷方面，有兩個方面。我們將獲得雙方的大量行銷支持，包括第三方行銷以及廣播和我們自己的平台，從而推動捆綁銷售。然後，至少，同樣重要的是，購買流程以及人們一旦進入購買流程，無論他們是為了捆綁產品還是為了我們的獨立產品而來，無論他們在哪裡，都會受到高度關注。的所有購買流中的發行量。

And then on the international side, look, you should expect, obviously, this has been a very big priority for us, as David said, and we are -- we haven't really executed similar. We've done a lot of international partnerships and bundles with telco, mobile and broadband players. And as you'll see us roll out in Europe and as we announced on Tuesday when we come to markets on Wednesday -- sorry, when we come to markets like -- new markets like France, we have big partnerships with people like Canal, Free, Orange, SFR, all the big mobile telco players, that will continue to be our strategy. And then partnerships with other programmers and other streamers we will continue to explore, and I think you should see that in our road map in the quarters to come.

然後在國際方面，你看，你應該預料到，顯然，這對我們來說是一個非常重要的優先事項，正如大衛所說，我們 - 我們還沒有真正執行類似的操作。我們與電信、行動和寬頻營運商建立了許多國際合作夥伴關係和捆綁業務。正如您將看到我們在歐洲推出的那樣，正如我們週二宣布的那樣，當我們週三進入市場時，抱歉，當我們進入像法國這樣的新市場時，我們與Canal 等人建立了良好的合作夥伴關係， Free、Orange、SFR，所有大型行動電信營運商，這將繼續是我們的策略。然後我們將繼續探索與其他程式設計師和其他串流媒體的合作，我認為您應該在我們未來幾季的路線圖中看到這一點。

Yes. And one of the advantages that we're seeing is by having 10 to 12 channels in every country and free-to-air and local content all over the world, we have relationships with all these distributors. And when you saw deals here in the U.S., this innovative deal that Bob and Chris did with Charter and Disney, those are deals outside the U.S. that you'll see replicated or already happening, and you'll see it as we launch, that allow for a real advantage for the fact that we're already in business. A real advantage that not only are we in business, but that consumers are watching our content. And we'll be transitioning a lot of those consumers to watching us through our Max product.

是的。我們看到的優勢之一是，我們在每個國家/地區擁有 10 到 12 個頻道，並在世​​界各地提供免費和本地內容，因此我們與所有這些發行商都建立了合作關係。當你在美國看到交易時，鮑勃和克里斯與查特和迪士尼達成的創新交易，這些是美國以外的交易，你會看到複製或已經發生，當我們推出時，你會看到它，考慮到我們已經開展業務這一事實，我們具有真正的優勢。這是一個真正的優勢，不僅是我們在做生意，而且消費者正在觀看我們的內容。我們將讓許多消費者透過我們的 Max 產品來觀看我們的節目。

We'll take our next question from Vijay Jayant with Evercore ISI.

我們將接受 Evercore ISI 的 Vijay Jayant 提出的下一個問題。

This is Kutgun Maral on for Vijay. If I could just follow up on the Disney bundle, maybe a high-level question. If we take a step back, the content companies entered distribution years ago with streaming. And now we're kind of going through this rebundling base of these services. Between the Disney bundle as well as the separate sports JV you announced a while back with Disney and Fox, you're clearly placing yourself in a key position in this industry transition.

我是庫特岡·馬拉爾 (Kutgun Maral) 為維傑 (Vijay) 發言。如果我能跟進迪士尼捆綁包，也許是一個高級問題。如果我們退後一步，內容公司幾年前就透過串流媒體進入了發行領域。現在我們正在經歷這些服務的重新捆綁基礎。在迪士尼捆綁以及您不久前與迪士尼和福克斯宣布的獨立體育合資企業之間，您顯然將自己置於這一行業轉型的關鍵位置。

So I guess the question is, how does this evolve over the next few years? And what does this mean for industry consolidation and how you look to invest behind your DTC and linear assets?

所以我想問題是，未來幾年這種情況會如何發展？這對產業整合意味著什麼？

Well, we've been saying for the last 2 years that the consumer experience is a real challenge. And ultimately, you've got to follow the consumer. Our philosophy is create the best consumer experience, and that ultimately, the consumer will go to the best content, the best storytelling in the world.

過去兩年我們一直在說，消費者體驗是一個真正的挑戰。最終，你必須跟隨消費者。我們的理念是創造最好的消費者體驗，最終消費者將看到世界上最好的內容、最好的故事敘述。

And so in order to effectuate that, we've pushed for this real direct-to-consumer with no middleman. There are great companies that are doing a terrific job of helping this -- as we make this transition to provide a better consumer experience. But the ability for us and Disney together to reach out to consumers, it's a stronger business.

因此，為了實現這一目標，我們推動了這種真正的直接面向消費者的方式，沒有中間商。當我們進行這項轉變以提供更好的消費者體驗時，有一些偉大的公司在幫助實現這一目標方面做得非常出色。但我們和迪士尼有能力共同接觸消費者，這是更強大的事業。

We get all the data. We have an ability to work directly with consumers and to work to enhance that experience. We're doing that ourselves with Max. The key for us is we need to be prominent in all of the major bundles and all -- because we want to be in front of all consumers. And we think that we have the entitlement as long as we can continue to provide great content, whether it's entertainment, nonfiction, sports, news and we have content in every language. JB?

我們得到了所有的數據。我們有能力直接與消費者合作並努力增強這種體驗。我們正在和麥克斯一起做這件事。對我們來說，關鍵是我們需要在所有主要捆綁包中脫穎而出——因為我們希望出現在所有消費者面前。我們認為，只要我們能繼續提供精彩的內容，無論是娛樂、紀實、體育、新聞，我們就有權利提供各種語言的內容。傑布？

Yes. Just the only thing I'd add is, look, I think what happened in the 2010s is the industry went down a very dangerous financial path of trying to invest in every type of content in every genre to try and be something for everyone. And at the end of the day, we know where that led us to. We're now getting back to all being great at what we do and swim in the lanes that we were great at. Disney, obviously, is incomparable and world leader in kids and family. We are world leaders in premium dramas, scripted drama, comedy, nonfiction verticals. And we can get back to investing and prioritizing our lanes and our key content, they can do theirs.

是的。我唯一要補充的是，看，我認為 2010 年代發生的事情是，該行業走上了一條非常危險的財務道路，試圖投資每種類型的每種類型的內容，試圖成為每個人的東西。最終，我們知道這將我們引向何方。我們現在又回到了我們所做的一切，並在我們擅長的泳道上游泳。顯然，迪士尼在兒童和家庭領域是無與倫比的世界領導者。我們是優質戲劇、劇本戲劇、喜劇、非小說垂直領域的世界領導者。我們可以重新投資並優先考慮我們的路線和關鍵內容，他們可以做他們的。

And synthetically, these bundles allow us to do that while still providing the consumer with a very attractive price for the combination of products such that they feel like they don't need to any more do all the switching in and out of services month-to-month, but rather pay and get an advantage of one price. And even if they don't use the service in one month, they still feel like they're getting great value and they might use it the next month. And so it's got a lot of rationale by pulling these together and makes us all be able to go back to investing in the areas that we really are great at.

綜合而言，這些捆綁包使我們能夠做到這一點，同時仍然為消費者提供非常有吸引力的產品組合價格，使他們感覺不再需要每月進行所有服務的切換。支付並獲得一個價格的優勢。即使他們在一個月內沒有使用該服務，他們仍然覺得自己獲得了巨大的價值，並且他們可能會在下個月使用它。因此，透過將這些整合在一起，我們所有人都能夠重新投資於我們真正擅長的領域，這是有很多道理的。

It does feel like this is a moment in terms of what the next year or 2 years will bring. I said a while back that this is a generational disruption. I went through a generation -- a disruption not quite as big as this, but when my career started, when the cable business was getting started, that was a real disruption.

就明年或兩年將帶來的情況而言，這確實是一個時刻。我不久前說過，這是一代人的顛覆。我經歷了一代人——一次顛覆沒有這麼大，但當我的職業生涯開始時，當有線電視業務開始時，那是一次真正的顛覆。

And as we look at what happens ahead, there likely will be a restructuring of how people view content and there's a lot of irrationality in the market that's getting shaken out in terms of the amount of money spent. We said early on, it's not how much, it's how good and that's what we're focusing on. And ultimately, I think the business will look very different in 2 to 3 years. And it will be much better for consumers, from our perspective.

當我們展望未來發生的事情時，人們對內容的看法可能會重組，而且市場上的許多非理性現像在花費的金額方面正在被消除。我們很早就說過，重要的不是多少，而是有多好，這就是我們關注的重點。最終，我認為該業務在兩到三年內將會發生很大的變化。從我們的角度來看，這對消費者來說會更好。

We'll take our next question from Jessica Reif Ehrlich with BoA Securities.

我們將回答美國銀行證券的 Jessica Reif Ehrlich 提出的下一個問題。

Maybe sort of following up on, David, on what you just said. The last 2 years, as you well know, you've gone through a restructuring while navigating through the massive industry changes. And as you look out over the next 2 years and you said there would be some -- the industry would restructure, but from a WBD point of view, what do you think the biggest surprises will be? How different will the company look?

大衛，也許是在跟進你剛才所說的話。如您所知，過去兩年您經歷了重組，同時也經歷了巨大的行業變革。當你展望未來兩年時，你說產業將會重組，但從 WBD 的角度來看，你認為最大的驚喜是什麼？公司的面貌會有何不同？

And then secondly, next week is the Upfront, as we all know. Can you give us your outlook for both sides, both Direct-to-Consumer and linear?

其次，眾所周知，下周是前期工作。您能否向我們介紹一下您對直接面向消費者和線性的展望？

Thanks, Jessica. Look, we've spent the last 2 years at the very essence has been -- the investment community uses the word synergy. The way we looked at it is we had an opportunity to restructure each business to start over. What does this business look like if we started today, to build a business that will be successful for the future. We did that at Warner Bros. Motion Picture. We did that at Disney. We did at DC. We did that with Max and HBO. We did it with our channels business, our production business on Warner Bros. Television.

謝謝，傑西卡。看，過去兩年我們一直在關注本質——投資界使用「協同」這個詞。我們的看法是，我們有機會重組每項業務以重新開始。如果我們從今天開始，打造一個未來會成功的企業，這個企業會是什麼樣子。我們在華納兄弟電影公司就是這樣做的。我們在迪士尼就是這樣做的。我們在華盛頓做到了。我們對 Max 和 HBO 就是這樣做的。我們透過我們的頻道業務、華納兄弟電視台的製作業務做到了這一點。

And for us, it's really 2 tiers. One is, we got rid of a lot of content we didn't think it was going to help us. But at the same time, we brought in a lot of great creatives and invested in a lot of content. So it's how do we run these businesses efficiently for real free cash flow and drive for growth.

對我們來說，這實際上是兩層。一是，我們刪除了很多我們認為對我們沒有幫助的內容。但同時，我們引入了許多優秀的創意，並投入了大量的內容。因此，這就是我們如何有效地經營這些業務以獲得真正的自由現金流並推動成長。

But two, creative excellence. How do we have the best content? In this past year, HBO had maybe its best year ever, and in addition to that, Warner Bros. Television has some of the best, highest quality TV production. And we're looking at our Motion Picture business now, which we're feeling really good about. It's #1 at the start the year, but we have a lot of great content.

但第二，卓越的創意。我們如何擁有最好的內容？在過去的一年裡，HBO 可能是有史以來最好的一年，除此之外，華納兄弟電視台還擁有一些最好、最高品質的電視作品。我們現在正在考慮我們的電影業務，我們對此感覺非常好。它在年初排名第一，但我們有很多精彩的內容。

And so I think it's that combination. Great content, great creatives, how it's fighting to tell the best stories on every platform. And then running it like a real business, real free cash flow and real EBIT.

所以我認為這就是這種組合。精彩的內容、精彩的創意，以及如何努力在每個平台上講述最好的故事。然後像真正的企業一樣經營它，擁有真正的自由現金流和真正的息稅前利潤。

And I think those 2 are going to -- will drive us for the future. And -- but it all starts with the content. If our content is great, that's our mantra: the best content will win. And we have to continue to tell the best stories.

我認為這兩點將推動我們走向未來。而且——但這一切都始於內容。如果我們的內容很棒，那就是我們的座右銘：最好的內容將會獲勝。我們必須繼續講述最好的故事。

Yes. I mean, look, for the Upfront, I think it's a little early. We definitely hope to continue some of the momentum that we've seen last year. I would also say that we're operating in a much more constructive environment this year than we did last year. So hopefully, that will be supportive.

是的。我的意思是，對於前期來說，我認為現在有點早了。我們絕對希望繼續保持去年的勢頭。我還想說，今年我們的營運環境比去年更有建設性。希望這會得到支持。

To your point, Jessica, about the differentiation between D2C and linear, really, one of the things that's working very well right now is that convergence, the way John and the team take our inventory to the market is fully harmonized. Now it's across platforms incremental reach. We're leaning in further. You've seen some nice growth rates for our D2C inventory. We've got more to take to the market. We're taking it to the market with more data-driven product like the Olli announcement that we made earlier. And so there should be further opportunity. We're just getting started.

傑西卡，就你的觀點而言，關於D2C 和線性之間的區別，實際上，目前效果很好的一件事是融合，約翰和團隊將我們的庫存推向市場的方式是完全協調的。現在它已經跨平台增量覆蓋。我們正在進一步傾斜。您已經看到我們的 D2C 庫存出現了不錯的成長率。我們還有更多產品可以推向市場。我們正在透過更多數據驅動的產品將其推向市場，例如我們先前發布的 Olli 公告。所以應該還有更多的機會。我們才剛開始。

And look, longer term, there is definitely more opportunity here. We have been very transparent about the significant monetization difference between linear and digital advertising. David talked about AI a couple of minutes ago, certainly, that should be a helper longer term as we think about our go-to-market here. So definitely some upside.

從長遠來看，這裡肯定有更多的機會。對於線性廣告和數位廣告之間的顯著貨幣化差異，我們一直非常透明。大衛幾分鐘前談到了人工智慧，當然，從長遠來看，當我們考慮進入市場時，它應該是一個幫助者。所以肯定有一些好處。

And maybe one thing to add to your question about the surprises here, I think if you take a step back and look at our numbers right now, what we just discussed for the first quarter, we have full conviction that our Studio can earn a lot more than it is doing right now.

也許要補充一點關於這裡的驚喜的問題，我想如果你退後一步看看我們現在的數字，我們剛剛討論的第一季度的內容，我們完全相信我們的工作室可以賺很多錢比現在所做的更多。

We have full conviction that JB and Casey and the team are on an incredibly successful track. But as we've laid out many, many times before, this doesn't happen overnight, but we're seeing the sausage we're making. We're seeing how we're running the company fundamentally differently that's not reflected in our current and near-term financials. And I think that's going to be the surprise as we come through and show you what the D2C business and our content business can do longer term as we come out of the transformation.

我們完全相信 JB 和 Casey 以及團隊正走在一條極其成功的道路上。但正如我們之前多次指出的那樣，這不會在一夜之間發生，但我們正在看到我們正在製作的香腸。我們看到我們以根本不同的方式經營公司，但這並沒有反映在我們目前和近期的財務數據中。我認為，當我們完成轉型並向您展示 D2C 業務和我們的內容業務在長期內可以做些什麼時，這將是令人驚訝的。

Yes. When you think about the D2C business in the U.S., we need to fix the consumer experience and I think these bundling structures that we've come up with in sports and with Disney will help to do that.

是的。當你想到美國的 D2C 業務時，我們需要修復消費者體驗，我認為我們在體育領域和迪士尼提出的這些捆綁結構將有助於實現這一目標。

But we're a global business. We're in business almost in virtually every country in the world with multiple channels or free-to-air channels and 2/3 of a mature, if the subscription business is gestationally beginning to mature, come from outside the U.S. So when we launch with the Olympics, we're just getting started outside the U.S.

但我們是一家全球性企業。我們幾乎在世界上每個國家開展業務，擁有多個頻道或免費頻道，並且 2/3 的成熟（如果訂閱業務正在醞釀中）來自美國以外的地區。

So when you look at our subs, this is a big moment for us. And we think we have a real advantage because we have local content in every market. We've got relationships in every market. And this new idea of distributors, particularly in Europe and as well as Latin America, recognizing they don't want to get left behind and they're starting to talk to us proactively about moving our content onto broadband, how can they offer our products in a way because they don't want to be the antiquated cable operator. They want to be the cable operator and the channel store as well.

所以當你看看我們的潛艇時，這對我們來說是一個重要時刻。我們認為我們擁有真正的優勢，因為我們在每個市場都有在地內容。我們在每個市場都有關係。經銷商的新想法，特別是在歐洲和拉丁美洲，認識到他們不想落後，他們開始主動與我們討論將我們的內容轉移到寬頻上，他們如何提供我們的產品在某種程度上，因為他們不想成為過時的有線電視業者。他們也想成為有線電視業者和頻道商店。

So all of that, I think, bodes very well for our future. You have to be global. This is not a game for U.S.-only companies. Have to be global, above the globe.

所以我認為，這一切對我們的未來都是一個很好的預兆。你必須全球化。這不是只針對美國公司的遊戲。必須是全球性的、高於全球的。

We'll take our next question from David Joyce with Seaport Research Partners.

我們將回答 Seaport Research Partners 的 David Joyce 提出的下一個問題。

Following on to the Upfront and advertising question. You obviously have a long -- a strong relationship with the advertisers and have been on the forefront of ad tech. I'm just wondering how you're able to match up your analytics and data and targeted advertising on the linear networks with the offerings that the various digital platforms are doing. Just wondering when that might be showing through or is it starting to show through as some of this modest sequential improvement.

接下來是前期和廣告問題。顯然，您與廣告商有著長期、牢固的關係，並且一直處於廣告技術的最前沿。我只是想知道您如何能夠將線性網路上的分析和數據以及有針對性的廣告與各種數位平台正在提供的產品相匹配。只是想知道什麼時候這可能會顯現出來，或者是否開始顯現出這種適度的連續改進。

Well, it's certainly beginning to shine through, but I think there's a lot more opportunity. The thing to keep in mind here is we've got to differentiate between the traditional linear and D2C advertising.

嗯，它確實開始閃耀，但我認為還有更多的機會。這裡要記住的是我們必須區分傳統的線性廣告和 D2C 廣告。

Obviously, on the D2C platform, we are enjoying all the benefits that everybody else enjoys in terms of being plugged into all the key marketplace platforms and taking advantage of data partnerships in the marketplace.

顯然，在 D2C 平台上，我們正​​在享受其他人所享受的所有好處，即連接所有關鍵市場平台並利用市場中的數據合作夥伴關係。

But also on the traditional linear side, it's important to remember that with the shift in the distribution landscape, we've got a much greater share of virtual MVPDs in the mix. That opens up opportunities for us to do targeted advertising with dynamic ad insertion within the linear streams. And those are some areas where we see additional opportunity.

但在傳統的線性方面，重要的是要記住，隨著分銷格局的變化，我們在組合中獲得了更大的虛擬 MVPD 份額。這為我們提供了在線性流中透過動態廣告插入進行有針對性的廣告的機會。這些是我們看到更多機會的領域。

And if you take that together with the fact that JB is bringing in more and more ad-lite subscribers, that drives additional scale that not only drives inventory, but also a real scale advantage as we increase our reach across the combined platform.

如果你把這一點與JB 引入越來越多的低廣告訂閱者的事實結合起來，這會推動額外的規模，這不僅會增加庫存，而且隨著我們在整個組合平台上擴大覆蓋範圍，也會帶來真正的規模優勢。

So to answer your question more precisely, I think it's starting to come through, but this is going to be a growth cycle, I think, for many, many years to come.

因此，為了更準確地回答你的問題，我認為它已經開始出現，但我認為這將是一個成長週期，持續很多​​年。

We'll take our next question from Kannan Venkateshwar with Barclays.

我們將接受巴克萊銀行 Kannan Venkateshwar 提出的下一個問題。

Maybe one on the JV. When you think about the Disney JV with Hulu and Disney+, is there an opportunity maybe to add other services? Does this become kind of an anchor? And are you viewing this long term as an opportunity to maybe bring other services into the fold as well?

也許是合資企業中的一個。當您考慮迪士尼與 Hulu 和 Disney+ 的合資企業時，是否有機會添加其他服務？這會成為一種錨嗎？您是否認為這個長期目標是將其他服務也納入其中的機會？

And is there also a role for some degree of exclusivity in the sense that when you go to market with Disney on a standalone -- or Max on a stand-alone basis and a bundle, obviously, the price difference has to be attractive enough for consumers to go towards the bundle. So is there any kind of a different approach as you think about what kind of content becomes available across the bundle and individual services?

是否也有一定程度的排他性作用，因為當你以獨立的形式與迪士尼一起進入市場時，或者以獨立的形式和捆綁形式與Max一起進入市場時，顯然，價格差異必須具有足夠的吸引力消費者走向捆綁。那麼，當您考慮捆綁包和單一服務中提供哪些類型的內容時，是否有任何不同的方法？

And maybe one on advertising. I mean, your advertising increases or year-over-year change in DTC is now starting to become meaningful enough to offset bigger and bigger portion of the big clients in linear. I think it was about 30% offset this quarter. Is there a point over the course of maybe next year or 1.5 years where you see this becoming a big-enough driver to offset a big part of your linear ad declines?

也許還有一個關於廣告的。我的意思是，您的廣告增加或 DTC 的逐年變化現在開始變得有意義，足以抵消線性大客戶中越來越大的部分。我認為本季度抵消了大約 30%。在明年或 1.5 年的過程中，您是否認為這將成為一個足夠大的驅動因素，以抵消線性廣告下降的很大一部分？

Thanks, Kannan. On your first question, look, we think this proposition of Disney+, Hulu and Max is incredibly robust and compelling. You've got truly -- when we think about a lot of what's happened, as I said earlier, around people trying to figure out whether every individual company could invest sufficiently to deliver something great for everyone in the household, the reality is we've, I think, all learned somewhat painfully that the expense and frankly the excess of content from a consumer standpoint was way too much.

謝謝，康南。關於你的第一個問題，我們認為 Disney+、Hulu 和 Max 的這一主張非常穩健且引人注目。正如我之前所說，當我們思考發生的很多事情時，人們試圖弄清楚每家公司是否能夠進行足夠的投資，為家庭中的每個人提供偉大的東西，現實是我們「我想，大家都痛苦地體認到，從消費者的角度來看，費用和坦白說，內容過多是太多了。

And this allows us to come back. And when you see that package together, you have the greatest offering of kids and family content, the greatest offering of adult fare, the greatest offering of scripted and nonscripted content. So we don't think we need anybody else in that package to make it incredibly compelling.

這讓我們能夠回來。當你看到這個套餐時，你會發現最棒的兒童和家庭內容、最棒的成人內容、最棒的有腳本和無腳本內容。因此，我們認為我們不需要該方案中的任何其他人來使其具有令人難以置信的吸引力。

And when you see the dynamics of the existing landscape, obviously, Amazon and Netflix are both incredibly compelling, have great offerings and have become sort of utility. You sort of look at people saying, I need that plus one other package at a very attractive price, those two -- our bundle plus one or two of those other services pretty much, I think, can make up the entertainment experience for most consumers very happily. I think it will put more pressure probably on independent services from a churn perspective because they'll see likely more and more serial churners, people who come in and out on a much more ad hoc basis.

當你看到現有格局的動態時，顯然，亞馬遜和 Netflix 都非常引人注目，擁有出色的產品，並且已經變得實用。你會看到人們說，我需要一個非常有吸引力的價格加上另一個套餐，這兩個——我們的套餐加上一兩個其他服務，我認為，可以彌補大多數消費者的娛樂體驗非常高興。我認為，從流失的角度來看，這可能會給獨立服務帶來更大的壓力，因為他們可能會看到越來越多的連續流失者，也就是更臨時性地進出的人。

And so we do think this package can be an anchor tenant of every households entertainment experience. And we don't think there's a need at this point for anything more to it. Gunnar?

因此，我們確實認為該套餐可以成為每個家庭娛樂體驗的主要租戶。我們認為目前沒有必要做更多的事情。貢納爾？

Yes. Look, I mean, in terms of replacing linear ad sales, again, one important point that I want to reiterate, and we've made this a couple of times before, I think it's too simplistic to just look at, okay, we're doing, whatever, $7 billion of linear advertising today and that's going to transition elsewhere because the viewership is transitioning elsewhere. I do believe that we're going to see a very, very long period of coexistence. And feedback we're getting from the marketplace and the success we're seeing in our ad sales go-to-market, I think, supports that. So those environments are going to coexist.

是的。聽著，我的意思是，在取代線性廣告銷售方面，我想重申一個重要的一點，我們之前已經做過幾次了，我認為這太簡單了，不能只是看看，好吧，我們'無論如何，今天我們正在做價值70 億美元的線性廣告，而這些廣告將轉移到其他地方，因為收視率正在轉移到其他地方。我確實相信我們將會看到一段非常非常長的共存時期。我認為，我們從市場獲得的反饋以及我們在廣告銷售進入市場中所看到的成功都支持了這一點。所以這些環境將會共存。

But as I said before, we are seeing significant acceleration on the streaming side. We've gone through the CPM benefits that we're getting with a more targeted and more direct advertising approach. And we are seeing that there is a long runway for inventory growth on the streaming side as well. Again, 2 years ago, everybody thought that this was going to be an ad-free environment. I think we can clearly conclude that, that's not the case and we're still in the early innings.

但正如我之前所說，我們看到串流媒體方面的顯著加速。我們已經了解了透過更有針對性和更直接的廣告方法所獲得的每千次曝光費用的好處。我們看到串流媒體方面的庫存成長還有很長的路要走。兩年前，每個人都認為這會是一個沒有廣告的環境。我認為我們可以清楚地得出結論，事實並非如此，我們仍處於早期階段。

If you just compare the penetration of ad-lite subscribers as a percentage of the total subscriber base, it's growing, but still from a lower starting point. if you look at ad loads and a lot of the offerings -- by the way, specifically for HBO, which for years has had zero advertising embedded and we're taking very careful steps still to increase that, yet we're already seeing pretty significant.

如果你只比較廣告訂閱用戶佔總用戶群的百分比，你會發現它正在成長，但起點仍然較低。如果你看看廣告負載和很多產品——順便說一句，特別是HBO，多年來嵌入的廣告量為零，我們仍在採取非常謹慎的措施來增加廣告投放量，但我們已經看到了相當多的廣告投放量。

We're only doing a 30-second spot or a 60-second spot. And for those that are purchasing ad-lite, I don't -- I think there's an expectation that there would be more advertising than that. It wouldn't be approaching any kind of significant density, but you could easily go up to 2 or 3 minutes, double or triple what we're doing now.

我們只製作 30 秒或 60 秒的廣告。對於那些購買精簡版廣告的人來說，我不認為——我認為人們期望會有更多的廣告。它不會達到任何顯著的密度，但你可以輕鬆地達到 2 或 3 分鐘，是我們現在正在做的兩倍或三倍。

And if you look at the combined company, as we said in our prepared remarks, I mean, the combined company advertising trend is still down, obviously, with what we're seeing in linear. But it's gone from down 10% to down 7% and that's really driven by some of that support we're seeing in the streaming world.

如果你看看合併後的公司，正如我們在準備好的發言中所說，我的意思是，合併後的公司廣告趨勢顯然仍然呈下降趨勢，與我們所看到的呈線性關係。但它從下降 10% 下降到下降 7%，這實際上是由我們在串流媒體世界中看到的一些支援所推動的。

We'll take our next question from Rich Greenfield with LightShed Partners.

我們將接受 LightShed Partners 的 Rich Greenfield 提出的下一個問題。

I wanted to follow up on JV. You mentioned the buy flows and sort of how this will work from a both of you adding it into those buy flows. But how about the marketing? Like when you walk through -- I'm sure everyone who's on the call has walked through JFK, you've seen the massive Disney-Hulu advertising. Like are they going to be marketing House of Dragon this summer when this launches?

我想跟進 JV。您提到了購買流程以及雙方將其添加到這些購買流程中的運作方式。但行銷又如何呢？就像當你走過甘迺迪國際機場時——我確信每個接聽電話的人都走過甘迺迪國際機場，你都看到大量的迪士尼-Hulu 廣告。就像今年夏天推出《House of Dragon》時他們會進行行銷嗎？

And conversely, when things like Moana 2 hit Disney+, is Max going to be promoting like sort of the overall content offering among, not just your services, but theirs as well? I'm just trying to understand how this will functionally work.

相反，當《莫阿娜 2》等作品登陸 Disney+ 時，Max 是否會在您的服務和他們的服務中推廣整體內容產品？我只是想了解這在功能上是如何運作的。

And then just because it's obviously topical, it doesn't look like Paramount+ is going to exist much longer, I think probably most people now sort of realize that. If that content is up for grabs, how interested are you in licensing a wide swath of kind of Paramount's sports content, entertainment content? Anything you could talk about would be great.

然後僅僅因為它顯然是熱門話題，派拉蒙+看起來不會存在太久，我想大多數人現在都意識到了這一點。如果該內容可供爭奪，您對派拉蒙的各種體育內容、娛樂內容的授權有多大興趣？任何你能談論的事情都會很棒。

Thanks, Rich. On the marketing question for the bundle, look, both parties will continue to market clearly their offerings. And obviously, if you think about the majority of the market spend, it's really related to content marketing. So each of us will still have responsibility and we'll continue to market our content on our -- from our individual companies. And those will be attributed to the Max service or the Disney+ service or the Hulu service.

謝謝，里奇。關於捆綁包的行銷問題，雙方將繼續明確行銷他們的產品。顯然，如果你考慮大部分市場支出，它確實與內容行銷有關。因此，我們每個人仍然有責任，我們將繼續在我們各自的公司上行銷我們的內容。這些將歸因於 Max 服務、Disney+ 服務或 Hulu 服務。

In the performance side of the house, I think you will see a heavy lean-in on the bundle and it will be launched and then we'll do obviously more heavier lean-ins periodically throughout the year.

在性能方面，我認為您會看到對捆綁包的大力投入，並將推出該捆綁包，然後我們將在全年定期進行明顯更大規模的投入。

But my point about the buy flows, Rich, is that even if we're individually marketing our services -- or our content, I should say, the reality is once you get to that landing page, once you get to the top of the fold on our buy flows, the bundle -- this bundle will be prominently positioned such that people will see it every time they go in through the buy flows. And so whether it's marketing of individual content pieces, marketing of individual services or marketing of the bundle, you won't be able to not see this offer as part of the buy flow, whether you're coming in through Max, Hulu or Disney+, which is the prominence that we think is really important and visibility to help drive more -- obviously, not just awareness, but ultimately subscriber growth from them.

但我對購買流程的觀點是，Rich，即使我們單獨行銷我們的服務 - 或者我們的內容，我應該說，現實是一旦你到達那個登陸頁面，一旦你到達頂部折疊我們的購買流程，即捆綁包——該捆綁包將放置在顯著位置，以便人們每次進入購買流程時都會看到它。因此，無論是單一內容的行銷、單一服務的行銷還是捆綁行銷，無論您是透過 Max、Hulu 還是 Disney+ 進入，您都無法在購買流程中看到此優惠，我們認為這是真正重要的突出性和可見性，有助於推動更多——顯然，不僅僅是意識，而且最終是用戶的成長。

And look, we're always looking for good content. We structured a deal a while back for South Park, which has been a great product for us. When NASCAR came available for the summer, we bought some NASCAR. We have hockey, which we've done and -- which we added in the last few years, we're having a lot of success with. So any content company that we're -- we bought a movie output deal with A24.

你看，我們一直在尋找好的內容。不久前我們為《南方公園》達成了一項協議，這對我們來說是一個很棒的產品。當 NASCAR 夏季上市時，我們買了一些 NASCAR。我們有曲棍球，我們已經做到了這一點，並且在過去幾年中我們增加了曲棍球，我們在這方面取得了巨大的成功。因此，我們與 A24 購買了電影輸出協議。

Anytime there's an opportunity to buy content that we think will enhance our offering, whether it's a specific piece of content or whether it's a broad swath of content, if we think it can provide a better consumer experience and strengthen our offering, we're always looking at opportunities.

每當有機會購買我們認為將增強我們的產品的內容時，無論是特定的內容還是廣泛的內容，如果我們認為它可以提供更好的消費者體驗並增強我們的產品，我們總是會購買尋找機會。

And we will take our final question from Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo.

我們將接受富國銀行史蒂文·卡霍爾的最後一個問題。

So David and Gunnar, with a continuous improvement mindset, it seems like you have some tools that could help reaccelerate EBITDA. And then I think there's some concern about what you might be willing to do to match on the NBA rights. So I'm just wondering if we can think about these things being tied together, do you think you can find enough cost improvement that strengthens your hand as you think about a more aggressive matching offer to retain some of those rights?

因此，David 和 Gunnar 秉持著持續改善的心態，似乎擁有一些可以幫助重新加速 EBITDA 的工具。然後我認為有人擔心你可能願意做些什麼來匹配 NBA 的權利。所以我只是想知道我們是否可以考慮將這些事情聯繫在一起，當您考慮更積極的匹配報價以保留其中一些權利時，您是否認為您可以找到足夠的成本改進來增強您的實力？

And then, David, you said the churn is still above your target and I think this new Disney-Hulu bundle should certainly help that. I think you've also maybe got a bundle that's rolling off towards the end of this year with AT&T. Can you just help us think about some of the churn benefits you get from bundles and then some of the ARPU dilution which usually hits? And on a net-net basis, do you think that these improve the value of DTC earnings over time?

然後，大衛，你說客戶流失率仍然高於你的目標，我認為這個新的迪士尼-Hulu 捆綁包肯定會有所幫助。我認為您可能還獲得了 AT&T 將於今年年底推出的捆綁包。您能否幫助我們考慮一下從捆綁中獲得的一些流失收益以及通常會造成的 ARPU 稀釋？在淨額基礎上，您認為隨著時間的推移，這些會提高 DTC 收益的價值嗎？

Thanks. Look, churn is the -- you need to have a great product. You need to have great content. But the churn is just a killer in this business. And so we have been hyper-focused on it. And it's not one simple answer. But the churn is down dramatically and we measure it daily, weekly from when we launched this business. It's not in our target because our target is that it should be extremely low in the -- with a 2 handle. That would be -- that's when your business starts to be really healthy when you're below 3.

謝謝。看，流失就是──你需要有一個很棒的產品。你需要有很棒的內容。但流失只是這個行業的殺手。所以我們一直高度關注它。這不是一個簡單的答案。但客戶流失率大幅下降，從我們推出這項業務以來，我們每天、每週都會進行測量。它不在我們的目標之內，因為我們的目標是它應該非常低——帶有 2 個手柄。那就是——當你的收入低於 3 歲時，你的業務開始真正健康發展。

And so JB, why don't you talk -- we have very specific initiatives on churn. Certainly, bundling is a big helper. A lot of these deals that we're talking about with players in Latin America and in Europe where you're working with an existing distributor that you have a relationship with, that's hard bundling in many cases with users, have different characteristics that are quite attractive. But we need to go at this as like an attack mode. JB?

JB，為什麼不談談－我們對顧客流失有非常具體的措施。當然，捆綁是一個很大的幫手。我們正在與拉丁美洲和歐洲的玩家討論的許多交易，您正在與您有關係的現有分銷商合作，在許多情況下與用戶很難捆綁，具有不同的特徵，這些特徵非常明顯。 。但我們需要將其視為攻擊模式。傑布？

Yes. Well, I think, Steven, to David's point, the fact that up until we launched in LatAm, our ad-lite offering and SKU was only in the United States for HBO Max. It's a good example of where, as we look to partner with all sorts of distributors across the world, oftentimes you're right, there is pressure to do it at a price point that is more attractive and less costly to the partner.

是的。好吧，史蒂文，我想，按照大衛的觀點，事實上，直到我們在拉丁美洲推出之前，我們的廣告精簡版產​​品和 SKU 只在美國的 HBO Max 中提供。這是一個很好的例子，說明當我們尋求與世界各地各種分銷商合作時，通常你是對的，我們面臨著以對合作夥伴更具吸引力且成本更低的價格點進行合作的壓力。

And so launching that SKU across Latin America in a number of markets in Europe not only ultimately helps us go after a new customer segment that's more price sensitive at the lower end of the price points, but also allows us to work with partners who are more price sensitive in those partnerships and find a way to make it more affordable for them to get into business with us while at the same time not seeing ARPU dilution because that SKU and success is our highest ARPU SKU.

因此，在拉丁美洲和歐洲的多個市場推出該 SKU 不僅最終有助於我們瞄準對低端價格更敏感的新客戶群，而且還使我們能夠與對價格更敏感的合作夥伴合作。夥伴的價格敏感，並找到一種方法，使他們能夠更實惠地與我們開展業務，同時不會看到ARPU 稀釋，因為SKU 和成功是我們最高的ARPU SKU。

And so we get the benefits of new distribution from new customers and better partnership opportunities by getting that SKU out into markets and into partnerships with new players.

因此，透過將該 SKU 推向市場並與新參與者建立合作夥伴關係，我們可以從新客戶那裡獲得新分銷的好處，並獲得更好的合作機會。

And the LTV, I would say, which is obviously the other metric that we track very closely, our bundled partnerships generally do have some of the highest LTVs we see. And so obviously, we evaluate every deal on its own merits. We make sure that we're making the right trade-offs. But we look at both ARPU and LTV as the core metrics when we think about the values of those partnerships.

我想說的是，LTV，這顯然是我們密切追蹤的另一個指標，我們的捆綁合作夥伴關係通常確實擁有我們所看到的最高的 LTV。顯然，我們根據每筆交易的優點來評估它。我們確保做出正確的權衡。但當我們考慮這些合作關係的價值時，我們將 ARPU 和 LTV 視為核心指標。

This change of working with existing distributors is really meaningful. Because these distributors, cable operators, broadband players across Europe with the innovative deal that Chris did, what they're basically saying is that they want to take part. They want to be part of the content opportunity and the content economics in the new world.

這種與現有經銷商合作的轉變確實很有意義。因為歐洲各地的這些經銷商、有線電視營運商、寬頻營運商都參與了克里斯所做的創新交易，所以他們基本上想說的是他們想參與其中。他們希望成為新世界內容機會和內容經濟的一部分。

And so when you're working with an existing distributor where we have all these economics against our cable business with distributors in 180, 200 countries around the world, they don't want to see that relationship go away when people start consuming on -- through broadband, on app, more contemporary products. And so they're starting to really recognize that there's a real opportunity for them as well in recapturing those economics through broadband product.

因此，當你與現有的經銷商合作時，我們與全球 180、200 個國家/地區的經銷商進行有線電視業務時，他們不希望看到這種關係在人們開始消費時消失——透過寬頻、應用程式、更現代的產品。因此，他們開始真正認識到，他們也有真正的機會透過寬頻產品重新獲得這些經濟效益。

Why should they stand by and let somebody else get the revenue share on viewership of the quality content that we have that we're transitioning over a period of time from free-to-air and cable to more contemporary app products? So the fact that we're working with broad distributors and they're starting to recognize the value for them to be hard bundling, marketing, driving this to recapture that younger consumer is a very, very good trend for us and for the industry.

為什麼他們應該袖手旁觀，讓其他人從我們擁有的優質內容的收視率中獲得收入分成，而我們正在從免費廣播和有線電視過渡到更現代的應用程式產品？因此，事實上，我們正​​在與廣泛的分銷商合作，他們開始認識到硬捆綁、行銷、推動這一點以重新吸引年輕消費者的價值，這對我們和整個行業來說是一個非常非常好的趨勢。

And then, Steve, on the continuous improvement mindset, again, it's -- I think it's important to take a step back. The large part of this company and maybe the entire industry just was never very focused on financial discipline. We have dramatically changed that. We have a completely different mindset across the entire management team now. And that starts from the creatives who know that the creative stories need to be great, but we're also running a business. And we have so many different processes in place now and some of those pay dividends over time.

然後，史蒂夫，關於持續改進的心態，我認為退後一步很重要。這家公司的很大一部分，也許是整個行業，從來都不太關注財務紀律。我們已經極大地改變了這一點。現在我們整個管理團隊的心態完全不同了。這從創意人員開始，他們知道創意故事必須很棒，但我們也在經營一家企業。我們現在有很多不同的流程，其中一些流程會隨著時間的推移而帶來紅利。

Again, I mentioned the content workflow systems in my opening remarks here. If you designed Warner Bros. Discovery today, you would not create 12 different content systems, 14 different teams, the issues that HBO Max faced in '21 where they tried to roll out the product and were simply not able to get our content assets through the pipes because it was all duct taped together. We're in the process of working through all that.

我在開場白中再次提到了內容工作流程系統。如果你今天設計華納兄弟探索頻道，你就不會創建12 個不同的內容系統、14 個不同的團隊，HBO Max 在21 年面臨的問題是，他們試圖推出該產品，但根本無法讓我們的內容資產通過管道，因為所有管道都用膠帶粘在一起。我們正在解決所有這些問題。

My own financial systems, the corporate systems, we're still ripping out 5 different ERP systems. I have 225 financial boundary systems that we're replacing.

我自己的財務系統、公司係統，我們仍在拆除 5 個不同的 ERP 系統。我們正在更換 225 個財務邊界系統。

These things are paying dividends over many, many years. And what's also important is the one company mentality that just didn't exist on the Time Warner/ WarnerMedia side, everybody is fully focused and fully aligned. Our linear teams are proud to deliver the cash flow that we need as a company to fund our investments. They're proud to deliver the content regardless of whether it works on linear networks or whether you have applied it on [sets] working in the D2C space. And...

這些事情多年來一直在帶來紅利。同樣重要的是時代華納/華納媒體方面不存在的同一個公司心態，每個人都完全專注並完全一致。我們的線性團隊很自豪能夠提供我們作為一家公司所需的現金流來為我們的投資提供資金。他們很自豪能夠提供內容，無論它是否適用於線性網絡，或者您是否已將其應用到 D2C 領域的[設備]上。和...

And one company really -- you really see it in the ability to market globally. You saw it with Barbie, Wonka, with dune: Two, with Godzilla. You saw it with House of the Dragon, The Last of Us. When we launch House of the Dragon again, every platform, every platform everywhere in the world will be promoting it. But it won't be just in spots, it will be all of our talent talking about what's coming up on Max.

一家公司確實——你真的可以從全球行銷的能力中看到這一點。你可以看到《芭比》、《旺卡》和《沙丘》：《二號》和《哥吉拉》。你在《龍之屋》、《最後生還者》中就看過這一點。當我們再次推出《龍之家》時，每個平台、世界各地的每個平台都會宣傳它。但這不僅僅是在某些地方，我們所有的人才都會談論麥克斯即將發生的事情。

And it's something that's become very attractive and it's recognized in the community, that this is a place where if you create great content, that the Warner Bros. Discovery team will globally get behind it. People will know it's coming and we'll generate a lot of energy behind any great content. And so I think that's becoming one of the signatures of this company: one company and the ability to market globally like no one else.

它變得非常有吸引力，並且在社區中得到了認可，如果你創造出精彩的內容，華納兄弟探索團隊將在全球範圍內提供支持。人們會知道它即將到來，我們將為任何精彩內容提供大量能量。因此，我認為這正在成為這家公司的標誌之一：一家公司以及獨特的全球行銷能力。

And even in our growth business under JB and Casey, we're still focused on this. There's a difference between an investment and an expense. And there is -- it's not a coincidence that we're leading in terms of profitability while we're getting ready to significantly accelerate our growth over the next couple of years.

即使在 JB 和 Casey 領導下的成長業務中，我們仍然專注於此。投資和支出之間是有區別的。我們在獲利能力方面處於領先地位，同時我們正準備在未來幾年大幅加速成長，這並非巧合。

Thank you. And this does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time. Goodbye.

謝謝。今天的節目到此結束。感謝您的參與。您可以隨時斷開連線。再見。