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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-08-23): Designation Low · Gem Score -64 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality -54 · Value -72 · Sentiment -59 (timing only, not weighted)
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reference-name attribute you can cite):
profile-header/price-overview— company profile, live quote, market capextended-analysis— the core: three AI lens reads with findings, scores, and the analyst memofuture-predictions— our forward price-band predictionsmarket-narrative/ai-findings/gpt-critique— narrative context, cross-model findings, and an adversarial critique of our own analysis (near the end of the document)- Members-only sections (render as login gates for anonymous readers):
price-history,income-trend,key-metrics,financials(statement tables),insider-trading. The analysis above is public; the raw data tables require a free account.
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any ticker resolves at delvantic.com/stock/TICKER ·
raw inputs are public-company filings and market data (via licensed data feeds);
every model, score, lens read, and prediction on this page is Delvantic's own analysis.
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.
WBD NASDAQWarner Bros. Discovery, Inc. is a global media and entertainment company that develops, produces, and distributes content across television, film, streaming, and gaming. The company operates through three core business segments: Streaming, Studios, and Linear Networks, combining premium scripted entertainment, unscripted programming, live news, sports, and documentary content. Its portfolio includes well-known brands and services such as HBO, Max, CNN, Discovery Channel, DC, Warner Bros. Pictures, HGTV, Food Network, TNT, TBS, and Cartoon Network. Warner Bros. Discovery serves audiences and advertisers worldwide through direct-to-consumer platforms, cable and broadcast networks, theatrical releases, content licensing, and production operations. Headquartered in New York City, the company plays a central role in the modern entertainment market by linking large-scale content creation with broad distribution across traditional and digital media channels.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 0.29
Total Equity: $37.17B
Shares: 2,530,000,000
Total Debt: $32.71B
Cash: $4.57B
EBITDA: $6.42B
Total Debt: $32.71B
Cash: $4.57B
Revenue: $37.30B
Revenue: $37.30B
Revenue: $37.30B
Total Equity: $37.17B
Tax Rate: 54.3%
Equity: $37.17B
Total Debt: $32.71B
Cash: $4.57B
Current Liabilities: $12.50B
Long-Term Debt: $32.57B
Total Debt: $32.71B
Total Equity: $37.17B
Shares: 2,530,000,000
Shares: 2,530,000,000
CapEx: -$1.23B
Shares: 2,530,000,000
Stock Price: $27.13
Net Income: $727.00M
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 11, 2026 3:06pm (12d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $12.2B | $33.8B | $41.3B | $39.3B | $37.3B |
| Cost of Revenue | $4.6B | $20.4B | $24.5B | $23.0B | $20.9B |
| Gross Profit | $7.6B | $13.4B | $16.8B | $16.4B | $16.4B |
| Operating Expenses | $5.6B | $20.7B | $18.3B | $26.4B | $15.7B |
| Operating Income | $2.0B | -$7.4B | -$1.5B | -$10.0B | $738.0M |
| Net Income | $1.0B | -$7.4B | -$3.1B | -$11.3B | $727.0M |
| EBITDA | $3.6B | -$177.0M | $6.4B | -$3.0B | $6.4B |
| EPS | $0.43 | $-3.82 | $-1.28 | $-4.62 | $0.29 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $0.38 | $-3.82 | $-1.28 | $-4.62 | $0.29 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 11, 2026 12:33pm (12d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $3.9B | $3.7B | $3.8B | $5.3B | $4.6B |
| Total Current Assets | $7.3B | $14.0B | $14.2B | $14.1B | $13.2B |
| Total Assets | $34.4B | $134.0B | $122.8B | $104.6B | $100.1B |
| Current Liabilities | $3.5B | $15.0B | $15.3B | $15.8B | $12.5B |
| Long-Term Debt | $14.8B | $49.0B | $43.7B | $39.5B | $32.6B |
| Total Liabilities | $21.0B | $85.3B | $76.3B | $69.6B | $62.9B |
| Total Equity | $13.4B | $48.7B | $46.5B | $34.9B | $37.2B |
| Retained Earnings | $9.6B | $2.2B | -$928.0M | -$12.2B | -$11.5B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 11, 2026 3:06pm (12d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $2.8B | $4.3B | $7.5B | $5.4B | $4.3B |
| Capital Expenditure | -$373.0M | -$987.0M | -$1.3B | -$948.0M | -$1.2B |
| Free Cash Flow | $2.4B | $3.3B | $6.2B | $4.4B | $3.1B |
| Acquisitions (net) | -$2.0M | $3.6B | -$50.0M | $0 | $0 |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | $0 | $0 | $1.5B | $1.6B | $18.3B |
| Dividends Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Stock Buybacks | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net Change in Cash | $1.8B | $25.0M | $389.0M | $1.1B | -$846.0M |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Aug 11, 2026 3:06pm (12d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | +177.4% | +22.2% | -4.8% | -5.1% |
| Gross Profit Growth | +76.7% | +25.6% | -2.6% | +0.4% |
| Operating Income Growth | -466.3% | +79.0% | -548.1% | +107.4% |
| Net Income Growth | -832.7% | +57.6% | -261.8% | +106.4% |
| EBITDA Growth | -104.9% | +3,736.7% | -146.5% | +314.4% |
Deep Analysis
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
AI Lens 4th lens · how AI reaches this business · 5-yr
2026-08-11Content is WBD's dominant cost: generative tooling in VFX, animation, dubbing/localization, editing and marketing-asset creation can strip meaningful dollars out of per-title cost and unlock cheap multi-language re-monetization of a very large existing library at unchanged subscription pricing.
Cheap synthetic and creator video expands the supply of 'good enough' watchable hours, which compresses the relative scarcity of WBD's non-franchise catalog — unscripted lifestyle programming (HGTV, Food, TLC formats) is the most economically reproducible content on earth and it carries the affiliate fees servicing the balance sheet.
Whether attention for premium, brand-anchored narrative video holds while total video supply explodes. Observable in engagement hours per Max subscriber, churn on non-franchise months, and ad CPM spread versus AI-native/creator inventory.
Rights-cleared, litigation-safe franchise IP with multi-decade consumer trust (DC, Harry Potter, HBO brand), theatrical distribution relationships, live news and sports rights, and top-tier talent access — none of which a model weights file confers.
AI Lens thesis
AI reaches WBD on three separate channels that must not be blended: (1) production cost deflation, a genuine margin tailwind on a company whose largest expense is content amortization and whose pricing is set by competitive subscription markets rather than cost-plus; (2) supply-side commoditization of the mid-tier — formulaic unscripted, procedural filler, dubbing-dependent international catalog — which is where legacy affiliate and ad economics live, and where entrant barriers fall furthest; (3) intermediation, where AI discovery assistants and aggregator bundles further distance WBD from the viewer relationship it already does not fully own. Offsetting these is an asset-value channel: as models consume video, cleanly-owned, indemnifiable premium libraries become licensable and enforceable property, and WBD has both the catalog and the demonstrated willingness to litigate. Net: exposure is real but two-sided, and direction depends on whether franchise scarcity outruns content abundance.
What the market may be underestimating
Upside Near-zero-cost, quality dubbing and lip-sync makes tens of thousands of catalog hours viable in markets where localization economics previously blocked them — international ARPU and library utilization improve with almost no incremental content cash.
Downside Model-training licensing looks like found money but sets a price for the library that is likely far below its option value, and any broad licensing precedent weakens the IP-enforcement lever WBD is currently trying to establish in court.
Outcome range spread 46 · unresolved
Claude Reading
The raw quarterly print is uglier than the models fully convey. Q1 2026 revenue of $8.89B with a -$2.92B net loss is not just noise—it's a sequential decline from Q4 2025's $9.46B and continues a clear downward staircase from $10.03B in Q4 2024. Annual revenue has gone $41.32B → $39.32B → $37.30B, a two-year compression of ~10%. The lone bright spot, Q2 2025's $1.58B net income on $9.81B revenue, looks like a one-off (likely tax/divestiture-related given the noise around the planned studios/networks separation), not a run-rate. Strip that quarter and the trailing four quarters produce a net loss well north of $1.5B on ~$37B revenue. The 93.5x PE is a mathematical artifact of a tiny 2025 GAAP profit ($727M) that has already evaporated in Q1 2026.
The synthesis DCF at $10.32 is directionally right but I think mechanically too harsh—it appears to extrapolate FCF's -29% CAGR forward, which double-counts the linear decline that's already visible in revenue. WBD did $3.09B FCF in 2025 on $4.32B operating cash flow; even haircutting that to $2.0–2.5B for structural decay and assigning a 7–8x FCF multiple (appropriate for a declining but cash-generative asset with $32.7B net debt of $28.1B) gets you to an equity value of $14–20B, or roughly $6–8/share after debt service claims. So the models' $10.32 might actually be *generous* on a pure melting-ice-cube framing. Where the bulls have a real point—and where I partially dissent from Market Forces' "value trap" framing—is the announced separation of streaming/studios from global networks, which is a genuine catalyst the DCF cannot price. A clean streaming/studio RemainCo with HBO/Max/DC/Warner Bros. film could trade at 12–15x EBITDA on a strategic-buyer bid (Paramount/Skydance, Comcast, or a tech acquirer have all been floated), which is where the $27 price is really anchored.
The contrarian case worth taking seriously: this is not a fundamentals stock right now, it's an M&A/breakup stock. Insider activity supports skepticism though—the July 2026 option exercise-and-immediate-sale of 2.09M shares is textbook "get liquid at the takeout speculation price." No open-market buying. Equity of $37.17B against $32.71B debt with only $4.57B cash and a 1.05 current ratio means any refinancing shock or ratings downgrade compresses the equity fast; debt/equity of 0.88 understates the operational leverage because EBITDA is shrinking. ROIC of 0.52% is the tell—this business is not earning its cost of capital and hasn't in years. The "narrative premium" the models identify (+163% over DCF) is essentially a call option on a strategic transaction, and call options decay if the deal doesn't materialize on schedule.
I agree with the synthesis direction (overvalued) but partially dissent on magnitude and reasoning. Fair value on a standalone operating basis is probably $8–12; fair value including a probability-weighted breakup/takeout scenario (say 40% chance at $35, 60% chance at $10) is ~$20. Either way, $27.13 is pricing in near-certainty of a favorable strategic outcome that the numbers don't underwrite. The Q1 2026 -$2.92B loss should have hit the stock harder than it apparently did, suggesting the tape is being held up by deal chatter rather than operating performance. I would not short here (M&A tail risk is real and asymmetric), but I would not own it either—the risk/reward at $27 requires the deal to close, at a premium, within 12–18 months, with no financing accidents. That's three consecutive coin flips landing heads.
GPT Reading
What stands out is how little underlying economic progress supports a $67B equity value. Revenue has gone the wrong way for years: $41.3B in 2023, $39.3B in 2024, $37.3B in 2025, with the latest quarter at $8.89B versus $8.98B a year earlier. That is not stabilization; it is continued shrinkage. Gross profit held roughly flat at $16.4B in 2024 and 2025, but operating income only reached $738M in 2025, a 2.0% operating margin, after a disastrous -$10.0B in 2024. Even giving full credit for the cleanup from merger-era write-downs, this is a company earning sub-2% net margins on a declining top line. The latest quarter then reminds you how fragile the recovery is: net loss of $2.92B on $8.89B of revenue, a -32.8% margin. If the bull case requires durable normalized earnings power, the reported numbers still look episodic, not durable.
The cash flow is better than the P&L, but not good enough to justify the current multiple. In 2025, operating cash flow was $4.32B and free cash flow $3.09B, which is real money. But against a $67.4B market cap, that is a 4.6% FCF yield, and against enterprise value it is lower still. For a structurally challenged media asset with negative 5% revenue CAGR, that is not cheap. Net debt is still about $28.1B after subtracting $4.57B of cash from $32.71B of debt. Debt/equity of 0.88 is manageable on paper, but the more relevant point is that this capital structure leaves little room for execution misses when the core business is shrinking and earnings are lumpy. A business with 44% gross margin but only 2% operating margin is telling you overhead, content amortization, restructuring, and platform economics are consuming nearly all the franchise value before it reaches shareholders.
I also think some of the model outputs are simply wrong on type. This is not “high-growth profitable” by any sensible reading. The stock is being valued as a successful turnaround or strategic option on IP monetization, but the raw numbers still resemble a melting legacy bundle with intermittent accounting noise rather than a compounding streaming winner. A 93.6x P/E on 2025 earnings is almost meaningless because the earnings base is too thin, but it does emphasize the mismatch: investors are paying up for an outcome, not for current economics. EV/EBITDA of 14.8x would be acceptable for a stable or growing content platform with clear margin expansion; for WBD’s current profile, it looks rich. At $27, the market is discounting a future in which revenue stops falling, margins lift materially above 2%, and debt keeps coming down without starving content investment. That may happen, but the reported data does not yet show it happening.
The best argument against my skepticism is that 2025 did mark a real inflection versus 2024. Net income swung from -$11.3B to +$727M, operating income from -$10.0B to +$738M, and free cash flow remained solid at $3.09B. If the massive 2024 losses were largely non-cash impairments and the latest ugly quarter also contains exceptional charges, then headline profitability may understate the normalized earning power. A supporter would also point out that revenue declines have moderated from the post-merger slide and that a business producing over $4B of operating cash flow can delever quickly enough to unlock equity value. On that view, $27 is not pricing current margins; it is pricing a cleaner 2027–2028 earnings base once restructuring, integration, and portfolio rationalization are behind them. I weigh that less heavily because the burden of proof is on a shrinking media company to show sustained operating leverage, and so far each apparent step forward has been followed by another large loss quarter.
What would change my mind is straightforward. I would need to see at least two to three consecutive quarters where revenue is flat to up year over year, not down 1–5%, and where net income and operating income stay positive without giant swings. Specifically, I would want annualized operating margin moving convincingly above 8%, free cash flow holding above $4B, and net debt falling toward the low-$20B range without further severe top-line erosion. If management can prove that 2025’s $727M of net income was a floor rather than a one-off and that the $2.92B loss quarter is not a recurring feature, the equity can support more than my current view. Until then, the stock looks priced for a turnaround that the numbers have not yet earned.
Grok Reading
The raw numbers describe a post-merger media conglomerate that finally printed a full-year profit in 2025—$727 million of net income on $37.3 billion of revenue, with operating income of only $738 million—after three consecutive years of multi-billion-dollar losses. That 2.0% operating margin and 2.0% net margin on a still-shrinking top line (revenue CAGR of roughly –5%, 2025 revenue down another 5% from 2024’s $39.3 billion and well below 2023’s $41.3 billion) is not a high-growth profitable profile; it is a barely stabilized legacy cash-flow machine. Free cash flow of $3.09 billion against $32.7 billion of total debt and only $4.57 billion of cash is the single constructive datapoint: the business can service and slowly amortize leverage. But the most recent quarter (Q1 2026) obliterated the clean-up narrative with an $8.89 billion revenue print and a –$2.92 billion net loss (–33% margin), reminding anyone watching that earnings remain extremely lumpy and that content or restructuring charges can erase a year’s progress in one period. At $27.13 the equity is capitalized at $67 billion; enterprise value sits near $95 billion, or roughly 15× trailing EBITDA and more than 30× FCF. That is a growth multiple on a business whose revenue is contracting and whose ROIC is 0.5%.
The valuation synthesis calling the stock ~60% overvalued relative to a ~$10–11 DCF is directionally correct even if the precise fair-value pin is debatable. A 4.6% FCF yield on a melting linear base plus a streaming segment that has not yet demonstrated Netflix-like unit economics does not support a mid-teens EV/EBITDA when peers with clearer growth are not dramatically more expensive on a risk-adjusted basis. Gross margin has held near 44%, which shows the cost cuts have not destroyed the contribution structure, yet operating leverage has refused to appear at scale. The rule-based “high_growth_profitable” tag is simply wrong on the data; the market-forces “value-trap / melting ice cube” framing fits the multi-year revenue and FCF trajectory far better. Insider activity is noise—option exercises and awards, not open-market accumulation—and does nothing to contradict the fundamental picture.
The strongest counter-argument is that $3 billion of annual free cash flow, a debt-to-equity ratio now under 0.9, and irreplaceable IP (HBO, DC, Warner Bros. film library) create real optionality that a pure slow-decay DCF systematically underprices. If Max reaches sustainable contribution margins and linear attrition slows, the same cash-flow base can re-rate from distressed-media multiples toward the mid-teens without requiring heroic growth; strategic interest or further industry consolidation could crystallize a control premium well above $20. The 2025 swing from –$11.3 billion net loss to +$727 million also proves management can pull costs hard enough to restore accounting profitability when it chooses. Those points justify some premium to liquidation value, but they do not justify nearly 2.5× the conservative DCF when revenue is still falling 5% a year and the latest quarter just posted a multi-billion-dollar loss. The narrative is carrying more of the $27 price than the cash flows are.
I would flip to a constructive stance only if two consecutive quarters show revenue stabilization (flat to positive year-over-year) together with operating margins sustained above 8–10% and free-cash-flow run-rate clearly above $4 billion while net debt continues to decline. Absent that evidence, the stock remains a narrative-supported multiple on declining economics.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
WBD generates real cash - $3.09B FCF in the latest year on $37.3B revenue, with OCF/NI of 1.05x and accruals at -8.4% of assets suggesting reported earnings are not being inflated. Gross margin has actually improved from 39.6% in 2022 to 44% in 2025, and the company managed a small positive net income of $727M after three straight years of massive GAAP losses (-$7.37B, -$3.13B, -$11.31B). Diluted share count is drifting down (-1.2% CAGR) with modest 2.1% SBC intensity - per-share discipline is intact. The problem is the balance sheet and the top line. Net debt of $28.14B against $4.57B liquid cash and only $3.09B FCF implies roughly 9x FCF just to zero out debt, and Altman Z of 0.89 sits squarely in the distress band. Revenue has now declined two years running ($41.32B to $39.32B to $37.30B), operating margin swung from -25.5% to a barely-positive 2% in 2025 - improvement, but from a deep hole. This is a business fighting a secular linear-TV decline while carrying merger-scale leverage. Management/insider signal is negative-to-neutral: Zaslav exercised and dumped 2.1M shares for $56.9M in July 2026 with zero open-market buys across the insider group over the past year. Directors take awards; nobody is putting personal cash in.
Verify before trusting this (6)
- Debt maturity schedule and covenants - how much of the $28B net debt comes due in the next 3 years and at what rates
- Segment split: DTC (Max) profitability trajectory vs. Networks (linear TV) decline rate
- Nature of 2024's $11.31B loss - how much was cash vs. goodwill/intangible impairment
- Planned separation/spin of linear networks from studios/streaming and its impact on debt allocation
- Content amortization policies and any changes to useful-life assumptions that could flatter margins
- Whether the 2.1M-share Zaslav sale was under a 10b5-1 plan and the vesting/exercise price context
The e2e composite fair value is $10.71 (signal-adjusted $10.32) implying -62% downside, with DCF at $13.55 and an EPV floor that goes negative ($-4.90) once you charge the $28B net debt against a shrinking linear cash stream. Even giving the DCF the benefit of the doubt and haircutting the negative EPV as a runaway floor, deserved equity value clusters in the low-to-mid teens, not $27. To justify $27.12 the market must underwrite Max reaching Netflix-like streaming economics AND a soft landing on linear decline AND meaningful deleveraging - a stacked set of heroic outcomes.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Max subscriber and ARPU trajectory and segment operating margin in latest 10-Q
- Net debt paydown pace and refinancing schedule / weighted coupon
- Linear affiliate and advertising revenue decline rate vs guidance
- Content spend cadence and free cash flow conversion guidance
- Any asset sale or spin-off optionality that would change equity claim math
The market tape is mildly risk-on (regime +47, VIX 15.5) which should help a high-beta 1.57 name like WBD, but the stock-specific pressure is running the other direction. The active narrative is 'fallen-angel' with only moderate durability and low cult - a story the market is losing patience with as Q2 revenue fell 11% y/y and Studios cratered on Supergirl and The Bride flops. Headlines are dominated by 'revenue nearly cut in half' framing and a federal courtroom deciding a $31/share deal - meaning price action is now hostage to legal/deal risk, not fundamentals. Peer read-through is also negative: Paramount Skydance fair value just got cut on deal risk, tarring the whole legacy-media cohort. Analyst tone is bifurcated (earnings beat, revenue miss, streaming margin gains vs Studios weakness) which prevents a clean tailwind from forming. Net: the narrative is drifting from 'turnaround' toward 'zombie awaiting a bid,' and in a market that is only lukewarm risk-on, that leaves WBD pressed lower on any story crack.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Any ruling or scheduling update from the federal court on the $31/share transaction
- Whether Max subscriber and DTC margin trajectory continues to improve in coming quarters
- Analyst target revisions post-Q2 - watching for downgrades citing Studios rather than deal-price anchors
- Sector rotation signals: if legacy-media peers (PSKY, PARA) continue de-rating, WBD gets dragged
- VIX breakout above 20 or regime flip to risk-off would amplify the beta-1.57 headwind materially
AI reaches WBD on three separate channels that must not be blended: (1) production cost deflation, a genuine margin tailwind on a company whose largest expense is content amortization and whose pricing is set by competitive subscription markets rather than cost-plus; (2) supply-side commoditization of the mid-tier — formulaic unscripted, procedural filler, dubbing-dependent international catalog — which is where legacy affiliate and ad economics live, and where entrant barriers fall furthest; (3) intermediation, where AI discovery assistants and aggregator bundles further distance WBD from the viewer relationship it already does not fully own. Offsetting these is an asset-value channel: as models consume video, cleanly-owned, indemnifiable premium libraries become licensable and enforceable property, and WBD has both the catalog and the demonstrated willingness to litigate. Net: exposure is real but two-sided, and direction depends on whether franchise scarcity outruns content abundance.
Verify before trusting this (8)
- franchise title performance vs originals
- sports rights renewal economics
- library licensing rate per hour
- cash content spend per released hour
- AI-video quality reaching broadcast grade
- guild terms on synthetic performance
- AI-native studio commercial releases
- format licensing revenue trend
This lens hasn't been run for this ticker yet.
Prediction unavailable. valuation-synthesis has no result for WBD — the prediction needs its fair-value anchors.