Okay, great. We'll get started. My name is David Karnovsky. I cover media, entertainment, and advertising at JPMorgan. Very happy to have back at the conference, Gunnar Wiedenfels, Chief Financial Officer, Warner Bros. Discovery. Thanks for being here.
Thank you. Hello.
Okay, maybe to start high level, there's certainly no shortage of things going on at Warner Bros. Discovery. Seems almost unfair to start with this, but, you know, what are your key priorities? Where is the team focused right now?
Yeah. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to believe we only reported earnings for the first quarter two weeks ago, and you know, it feels like forever 'cause we've been busy executing, you know, page after page in our playbook here. There's a lot going on. We're in the middle of the U.S. ad sales Upf ront. The Warner Bros. Television production team finished a very successful L.A. screenings. Just recently, we secured the first presidential debate for CNN, which is something to look forward to in June. Just yesterday, JB Perrette and Gerhard Zeiler very successfully launched the first wave of our EMEA rollout for the D2C platform.
A huge, huge endeavor and a great opportunity to apply the learnings from the rollouts previously. And then something, you know, near and dear to my heart is, y ou know, I talked about the tremendous opportunity in our capital structure from the great, you know, debt stack that we put in place two years ago, and we've started taking advantage of that, you know, with the successful issuance last week in the Euro market, and the tender that's still out there, that's going very, very well, which, you know, combined will have a very positive impact on our leverage. So we've been busy.
The priorities are the same that we've laid out, you know, focusing on creating the best quality content in the world, you know, a strong distribution platform with the D2C platform. You know, the key priority right now to get that in place for a significant acceleration into 2025. And then, you know, continuing on the theme of operating the company as one Warner Bros. Discovery, which, you know, we've made great progress, but there's still, you know, more opportunity for us to capture.
Great. Great overview. So earlier this week, Max began its Europe launch in 20 countries. You wanna talk about the process there? What are the best practices you're applying over from the LATAM or U.S. relaunches?
Yeah, we should spend a lot of time talking about D2C because it's such a priority for the company and such an exciting growth opportunity. In terms of the launch process, it's really great to see how we're applying the learnings from earlier launches. We're this month also a year into our U.S. launch for the Max platform. You know, we had a very successful Latin America launch in February, and now, you know, the first step in Europe, essentially applying the learnings from what we've done before, and getting ready for the remaining European countries. We're gonna have, you know, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, France, some new market that we're not present yet with HBO Max.
All that coming up over the next six weeks, you know, leveraging House of the Dragon Season Two, and then getting ready for the Paris Olympics, which is a huge event for us because we, you know, with Eurosport, we're essentially this is in, you know, our home country. So, we're getting ready. The change here cannot be underestimated.
We really decided two years ago to build a new streaming platform from scratch, really a brand-new technology, made tremendous progress and the entire company has really had to come together for this, you know, from the creative side, from a product side, from the technology side, you know, the operational, you know, broadcast operations team, and it's great, and we've gotten better and better and every single time we've essentially overestimated the amount of churn and disruption we would see from these launches so.
Maybe just touching on that. So if I'm a Max customer in Europe, I open the app, you know, what's new for me in terms of features?
Obviously, it depends, you know, market by market, but there's a lot of change. I think the most important one is that in many of the territories, we're more than doubling the amount of content that's available. I think that's probably the most important point, but also in terms of, you know, features, pricing, tiering structure. You know, many markets, we weren't able, historically to have a an Ad-Lite offering, which is available now.
You know, we did see a lot of improvements in just the user experience, you know, the stability of the app, et cetera, relative to the old platform, which to some extent for HBO Max, you know, went back, you know, into the nineties in terms of some of the technology that was in use.
Interesting. And the Ad -Lite that's available in, I think, five countries to start, but then the goal is to roll that out across the region?
Yeah. And again, the interesting thing about the EMEA market is the complexity, really territory by territory.
Yeah.
So we'll always tackle this, you know, market by market, but clearly, there is an opportunity there. We've been, you know, thinking about the streaming opportunity pretty much the same way we've been thinking about the traditional TV opportunity, where, you know, you've got the FAST segment sort of resembling the free-to-air, and then you've got a basic segment and a premium segment. And we're trying to, you know, target everyone and address them with their preferences in terms of, you know, advertising tolerance versus willingness to pay. So we're in a much better position now to make those decisions, and we can talk more about sort of you know how that drives value for our D2C business.
Got it. I'd be remiss if I didn't follow up on some comments last week from your president of international regarding regions like the UK or Germany. You still operate there through a license. Seems like there's potential for change at some point. What can you say about the long-term model in those markets?
Well, Italy, Germany, U.K., those are obviously very important markets for us in the European footprint. They are specifically important because we have very, a very strong free-to-air positions in those markets. So longer term, there's no doubt we want a streaming service accompanying those, those free-to-air operations in those markets. And, you know, we obviously still have a lot of time left on the Sky agreement. And, you know, we'll be open to, you know, different models, but, but clearly, you know, a pure licensing model is, is not something that I think in the be- is in the best interest of our, our shareholders and also not the con- consumer going forward.
So, you know, we'll be, you know, negotiating and seeing what makes sense from a go-to-market perspective for these markets. We have applied that model, you know, successfully across our entire global rollout. We're looking market by market at what makes sense, you know, what the licensing opportunity is, what the upside longer term from an asset value perspective is from, you know, running an owned and operated platform, and, you know, in some markets, looking at partnerships. So all of that is available, you know, on the spectrum of potential go-to-market options.
Great. You recently reiterated a target of at least $1 billion in DTC profitability for 2025. What are the key areas of execution from here? How do you balance that goal against wanting to show significant improvement in 2024?
Well, so as we've said before, we really view the DTC business as, you know, still in the early quarters. You know, we've started with the new rollout of the Max platform a year ago. The first priority was to get the streaming service to profitability. We've checked that box last year. We're maintaining profitability, but 2024 is much less focused on necessarily growing profitability than it is focused on laying the foundation for, you know, that long-term, very dynamic and profitable growth that we're looking at, you know, starting with that 2025 target of $1 billion+. But we've also been clear that that's just one step along the way to a much greater and much more profitable service longer term.
So, you know, with that in mind, we're laying a lot of the operational foundations and putting in place those stepping stones to set us up for real success in 2025. And it's virtually along the entire, you know, entire, the entire P&L. It's entire across the entire operating stack. We have subscriber growth opportunities from launching in international markets. Remember, we still have about 50% to go. That's-
Right
T hat's what I mean by early quarters here. We have partnership distribution partnership opportunities. We have a bit of a password-sharing opportunity. We have pricing opportunities, and then, you know, very, very importantly, we have a real upside from the consumer perspective when it comes to the content offering and the overall consumer experience. We're still, you know, rolling out improvements in recommendation algorithms. The entire machine learning part is gonna get better and better with more time under the belt and greater reach across the entire platform.
And again, back to content, we've got one of the strongest lineups coming up, starting with, you know, House of the Dragon in a few weeks, the second season, The Penguin in the fall, our films, Dune, the Dune Two just dropped on the Max platform. And, you know, it's, it's a very, very strong lineup for the next 18 months after coming out of that, you know, strike, strike-related dearth of fresh content last year.
Yeah. And in Europe, the Olympics are coming, right? That'll be available, I think, across the-
Yeah
... region.
It's gonna be the only place where you can see every single event of the Olympics. So that's gonna be very exciting.
Maybe to follow up on some of your comments there. Password sharing, any way to frame that opportunity? Is it too early? Do you have to get through the kind of launches, relaunches to kind of determine or frame that?
Yeah, you're right. I mean, obviously, we have prioritized. There's so much to do, and we have prioritized our initiatives, a little bit, and certainly, you know, the LATAM and EMEA launches have taken, you know, top positions on the, on the priority list. Look, it's gonna be, it's gonna be an opportunity as for any other service in terms of sizing it. You know, I don't wanna get into specific numbers, but what I will say, because, you know, we've gotten a lot of questions on it, it's important to keep in mind that obviously everybody looks at the Netflix password crackdown impact. You know, they've been-
Yep
... you know, in business for much longer with their streaming service than we have. So, you know, you should definitely assume a significantly smaller opportunity, but it's, it can be meaningful.
Okay. I mean, I think one thing we've noticed from WBD, but your peers as well, is maybe an incremental emphasis on engagement, at least relative to what it was for growing subs overall previously. Content plays a big part in that. It'd be great for you to refresh. You've done that a little bit so far, 2024, 2025. What are other tools in your control that you can use to drive more watch time on the platform?
Well, let me make a general comment on this part of your question, subscribers. You know, we were among the first to depart from this strategy-
Yes
... of subscribers at all costs, right?
That's true.
That was this proxy metric that, you know, was looked at for a very long time and, and I think has led to some, some weird, you know, not necessarily, you know, very rational and economic developments in the industry. Subscribers are still an important driver. You know, it was the first driver I mentioned when you asked about the growth opportunity, but it's just, you know, it's just one input factor, and one that we pursue, you know, very carefully with an eye towards, you know, greater lifetime value than subscriber acquisition cost. Engagement is incredibly important for a number of reasons. Number one, you've already mentioned the advertising monetization that's playing a much greater role today than it did two years ago.
And we have a lot of runway there. We grew 70% in the first quarter in DT C advertising revenues, and we still have a lot of room to grow. A lot of our, you know, top content still doesn't have a lot of ad loads, and you know, some of it has no ad against it at all. So there's tremendous opportunity. Obviously, engagement is a huge driver, you know, to generate that inventory.
But, engagement or you know, more specifically, habituality is also important from a subscription perspective because, you know, increasingly we're moving towards a you know, more saturated market, especially, you know, domestically here in the U.S., where it's much more about, you know, making sure that people have no incentive to ever cancel their subscription. And you coming back to the platform on a regular basis every week, every day, ideally, is the best predictor of retention.
How important is it from, to get it right from a technology standpoint, right? I'm coming in every day, make sure I'm seeing the right content. You know, where are the potential improvements there?
Well, as I mentioned earlier, it's important to keep in mind where we started. Just a year ago, we were looking at a completely manually curated HBO Max service. And so, you know, obviously, with the Max platform, you know, has machine learning algorithms in place to, you know, improve on recommendations. But the nature of these algorithms is that the more data you have on your user behavior, which, you know, grows over time, the more opportunity the algorithm has to actually learn, the better the recommendations get. So we have a lot of runway there, I think.
But also generally speaking, you know, I always get the question on, you know, what are some of the silver bullets that are, you know, really, you know, get to a step change in operating metrics? The reality of this business is it's a thousand initiatives, you know, very small improvements, A/B testing, and sort of, you know, gradually improving the consumer experience and gradually driving that churn rate down and creating stickiness. And you know, we're very happy with how the platform is performing. You know, it was. It got very strong reviews out of the gate, but that's only the starting point. We're gaining yards every week, but there's still more opportunity and more to do.
Great. When I look at Max domestic versus launch a little over a year ago, two titles available now, B/R Sports, News. News is still in beta. Would love to, you know, hear what you can share as far as impact to engagement, gross adds, and then you've been adding rights like MotoGP, NASCAR. How do you think about the role of Max in the broader sports strategy?
Yeah, look. We believe in— You know, back to the engagement point, right? The big hypothesis here was, and that actually got confirmed so far. It's still early days, obviously, but, you know, people who are engaging across different genres, across different content categories, turn out to be stickier, and that's what you want, right? And so I think we have the great opportunity of managing a portfolio that's incredibly diverse and a broad range of offerings, and we're very happy to, you know, keep offering that to the computer— to the consumer in as many ways as possible. So we're happy with how this is going so far.
You know, when it comes to sports, it is fair to say that our top priority right now is to get that Venu venture up to speed. It's going very well. That is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us 'cause it will address one point that I think many sports viewers or actually consumers of any content are struggling with right now, and that's the fragmentation, that you just don't know where to find it. You realize that many of the offerings in the market are just too small. You know, with Venu, you know, we're gonna have all the national hockey, baseball, basketball, a lot of the NBA, sorry, a lot of the NFL. So there's a lot in one place.
Not complete, of course-
Yep.
B ut, it's gonna be a very, very attractive, and interesting offering, and so we're full steam ahead on getting that to the market. We saw the beta version of the technology. That's going well. The team is coming together, so, that's all looking good.
Are you confident that you'll launch it by the fall? Short time, but yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, very confident.
That's great. Just sticking on streaming, so partly as an effort to reduce churn, you announced a bundle with Disney+ and Hulu. You know, one comment we found interesting is that you framed the agreement as strong for ARPU.
Yeah.
We assume since there's a middleman here being cut out, question that we've gotten since earnings is, you know, how do you kind of square that against what will be, we assume, an attractively, you know, discounted price for consumers?
Well, that, that's what makes this deal so unique, right? And, and look, again, taking a step back, we've been big believers in bundling for a while. I mean, David has been talking about bundles for, for years now, you know, at a time when it wasn't, you know, really en vogue. But, you know, the, the, the tone across the industry has changed, and we, we now see a lot more of these bundles, popping up. This one, the challenge is obviously to make sure that you find an alignment of, of, of interests, right? 'Cause, you know, different players might have very different expectations or different objectives and, you know, inevitably, you got to, you know, reconcile that somehow. And here, in this bundle, you know, we're perfectly aligned.
We've got two, you know, well-established, great products in the market, to your point, where there's no distributor, you know, taking a share in the middle between the consumer and us. And so, that's why I made the point about the ARPU because it's unique. Typically, the way you know rationalize a bundle is, well, you know, we'll have an attractive consumer price point, and we'll get a churn benefit, and we might save some on the marketing, and we pay for that with a lower, you know, ARPU number, right? This one is different. You know, I have no doubt we're gonna see great churn benefits.
I have no doubt we're gonna see great marketing efficiencies, and I have no doubt that we're gonna generate an ARPU that's above our domestic overall average. Obviously, you know, the overall average is to some extent driven down by wholesale deals, so that's where the middleman comes into play. So, I think a top-to-bottom fantastic deal from a consumer value proposition perspective, but also economically. And, you know, I can't wait to get this out 'cause I really think this could be big.
Going to your point on the ecosystem, not even two weeks post your agreement, Comcast comes out, they announce their own bundle: Peacock, Netflix, Apple. Curious your view, is this the kind of beginning of an end state for the streaming ecosystem? And should this overall create more stability overall for everyone's packages?
Look, I don't wanna make a prediction about an end state here, but back to what I said earlier, I think it's pretty clear at this point that there is some consumer frustration.
Yeah.
I have these conversations every day with, you know, with friends and, you know, family, you know, professional contexts. It's like, it's frustrating. You don't know where to find what you're looking for. Then, you know, if you're lucky enough to know where it is, you've got to find out or remember whether you have a subscription or not. And then you've got to, you know, key in your password, and it's just not a great experience, kinda contrary to what everybody thought initially, right? So I do think that bundling is gonna play a very important role. I don't know if it's the end game, but it's gonna play a very important role, I think, in the ecosystem.
Got it. Maybe just shifting gears, WBD held their Upfront two weeks ago. I know it's way early to ask on price or volume, but maybe you could speak directionally to tone with buyers, reception to some of the products you put out. And if it is too early, maybe you could just discuss the health of the wider ad market, domestic, international, any color.
Yeah, look, I would, I would start by making the same point that I, that I made two weeks ago. We're cautiously optimistic here. We've seen gradual improvements in the market over the past few quarters. It's not the dramatic recovery that I would love to see, but, you know, it's moving in the same, you know, positive direction. And I think that's an important factor. The second point I wanna make is what's gonna be very different this year, really, in the Upfront, is the full focus on convergent and digital sales. We're out there with our all product.
So for the first time, offering advertisers the opportunity to, you know, do the complete chain of planning, activation, and measurement, you know, across our entire inventory offering, regardless of platforms. I think that's gonna play very well. We've gotten very positive feedback. And you know, I mentioned the growth rate that we're already experiencing in our streaming advertising business. I mentioned that earlier, and we're gonna double down and push that really hard in this upfront.
Maybe, zooming out a bit, you know, obviously, the pressure is on linear. Well known. How do you, as CFO, think about operating the suite of channels from a cost standpoint to reflect the ecosystem, while also kind of leveraging these networks to, in your streaming build-out?
Yeah. Look, our streaming, our linear business is incredibly important from a cash flow perspective, right? So that's, you know, there's the shiny objects are the studio and the D2C business, but, you know, there's a lot of cash coming out of that linear business. I have no doubt there will be a lot of cash coming out of that business for a very long time. And you know, we've talked about the opportunities that we have with better monetization on the advertising side, you know, more use of data-driven linear dynamic ad insertion, you know, the bundled offerings with streaming products, et cetera.
And we also have, I think, a pretty strong position when it comes to the affiliate ecosystem, where we're still, you know, by my estimation, if anything, under-monetizing relative to the rest of the ecosystem rather than over-monetizing. So that gives us a certain amount of protection on the top line. And then to your point on the cost structure, I made some remarks when we reported earnings two weeks ago. We have now gone from integration and transformation towards a continuous improvement process that's become muscle memory for the entire organization. You know, be it on the corporate side, on the linear side, but also, you know, for the studio and D2C.
But specifically for linear, we're going to drive for the most efficient setup possible. And if you look at the individual cost drivers, you know, when it comes to content, we have a very good understanding now of the return on investment that we're generating with every dollar spent on content. And it is a very profitable business model and will be for a while, so we're investing behind it. You know, as you know, longer tail networks, you know, gonna drop to a level where additional investments are not justified anymore, we will know that early enough to make those decisions very rationally in the best interest of shareholders.
And then when it comes to the non-content spend, there's still more opportunity for us, where you know we are operating a global footprint when it comes to broadcast technology. That there's more. You know, there there's technology advancement that we can take advantage of. We're currently looking into and creating more of a hubbed you know broadcast operation structure globally, that should help drive efficiencies. And you know we've started taking more advantage of you know the great talent that's available in some of our capability center locations.
You know, we've got thousands of people now in places like Hyderabad, India, Warsaw, Mexico City, that those are all gonna help, you know, not only drive great outcomes, but also help on the efficiency side from a P&L perspective.
Just following up on one, you know, you talked to your networks potentially being under-monetized. I'd love to hear kind of, you know, what informs that view and what gives you confidence as you go into future negotiations?
Well, you know, the way I look at it is, you know, as much as we sometimes hear that, you know, some of our affiliates are at this point indifferent about the video business. We know what viewership we're driving, what engagement we're driving, and what share of their economics we're driving, and we can put that in relation to what we estimate our CPS payments to be in terms of share of their programming expenses. And when you do that analysis, then, you know, I'm confident that they're making a lot of money with our product, and that should provide an incentive, I think, going forward, to continue this business in the most constructive way. And we've been great partners as well.
If you look at our behaviors when it comes to, you know, the traditional affiliate landscape, you know, we have been great partners.
Got it. With the NBA, I think many people in this room probably want me to ask you for an update. I wouldn't expect you to break news, but maybe I can give you a follow-up to what you said on the earnings call around matching rights. Would be interested to understand better how those work. Is this entirely financial? Are there considerations around packaging? You know, what can you, what can you say?
Well, you wouldn't be surprised that I'm not gonna be breaking news here. And look, this is still very much an ongoing negotiation. You know, we've had a great partnership with the NBA. We value the product, and we're very hopeful that we're gonna be able to find you know, a solution here that's mutually beneficial to both sides. We do have a contractual matching right, and that's an important part of our ongoing contractual relationship. But you know, that's about as much as I wanna say about the NBA. I do wanna say, sort of maybe more generally, when we-
Sure
... talk about sports rights, we've been very clear forever that sports are a very important category, and we're fully committed to a sports strategy. We've been in the business for decades here in the U.S. for decades, actually, internationally as well. We have great sports offerings in virtually every, you know, key market in the world, and we continue to be fully committed there. What I also will say is, we're always gonna be disciplined. It's very easy with sports rights to burn a lot of money, and there's also an opportunity to get your hands on some of the most emotional and most coveted, you know, products from an audience perspective.
So, you gotta be disciplined and think through all the scenarios. And obviously, you know, when it comes to the domestic sports strategy, you know, this was a major factor when we went through the considerations for even combining, you know, WarnerMedia and Discovery. We spent a lot of time thinking about what the combined go-to-market strategy from a sports perspective is. So, you know, we've been very focused on this for the past two years. Luis and the team have been very focused on it. We've added a lot of sports rights with the NHL, with NASCAR, you know, with U.S. Soccer. And, you know, there's a lot out there, and we're very engaged.
Whatever, back to the NBA, so whatever, you know, outcome, we, we've thought these scenarios through. We've got our strategies in place, and, you know, I think we're, we're gonna have a very, very strong sports offering. And, I'll just say, stay tuned.
Great. I wanna shift to the Studio side. At the end of last year, David gave what I thought was a frank assessment of the performance in 2023. This year, meanwhile, is off to a great start. Warner Bros. has two of the highest, or the two highest grossing films. Behind the scenes, what actions are you taking to kind of improve the batting average on content? And then you touched on this at earnings. You know, how do you, as CFO, think about driving more profitability out of the hits, minimizing losses on the misses?
Yeah, look, I mean, the Studio is a super interesting part of our business, partly because, you know, I, yeah, I've been vocal about this. I think we have under-earned over the past few years in the studio, and I think there's tremendous value in that asset. I mean, it's an unbelievable IP library. These are unbelievable talent relationships across, you know, film, TV, games, and so I think there is a real value opportunity for us. And to, you know, to your point, you know, we have we've seen lower EBITDA last year, and, and, you know, slightly less financial success on the film side, which was very much driven by a very different strategy.
You've got to remember, a lot of what hit the screens in 2023 was still developed with an eye towards streaming first and just a certain number of films, regardless of, you know, what was available and, you know, what the quality was. So that's changed. Obviously, Mike and Pam are taking a very different approach here, and gradually, as we move through this year and then really into next year, we're gonna see their products, their choices, and we're gonna increasingly see their handwriting on the films. And so, you know, I think David has selected a great leadership team for the Studio from a purely financial perspective. You know, what I look at is the process of how we're making decisions and how we're executing.
That's something that is probably not necessarily gonna impact the creative success, you know, in a positive or negative way. But what I've got a lot of confidence in is our ability to make sure that in success, we drive better results, and in the inevitable, you know, failures, we limit our losses.
And that confidence is driven by, you know, what we've implemented in terms of processes, starting from the first of all, the mindset of the executives making the decisions, but then also, you know, the budgeting, the fact that we're creating accountability, that we're going back to assumptions, that we're going back to budgets, the fact that we're leveraging the entire, you know, physical production footprint of the company, that's something that was not in place previously. We're using our lots. We're just expanding the lot in the U.K.. We're utilizing our entire, you know, leverage that we have across a $10 billion own content physical production spend bucket. There's a lot of...
You know, there's a lot of, you know, master service agreements that you can put in place. And so all of these things are, you know, without any negative impact on the on-screen product, potentially actually with a positive impact, but significantly improving the economics of the business. Now, it's gonna take a little bit to flow through, as you know, 'cause these, you know, these productions take some time. But I really think that, you know, a year from now, two years from now, the studio is gonna operate at a very, very different level of profitability, and it's probably one of the biggest hidden gems and value drivers of this company.
Got it. At earnings, you noted a path to meaningfully exceed $1 billion in remaining cost savings you had previously guided to. Also noted early innings on improving working capital. Maybe you can discuss a bit the incremental opportunities there.
Yeah, I mean, you know, back to the point that I made about the muscle memory of a continuous improvement mindset, and, you know, I'll just say this: the media industry isn't necessarily known for crazy efficiency, and so we've taken a lot of that inefficiency out through the initial merger integration. But there is still a lot more room, and we're now very focused on the, you know, what I would call the back burner initiatives. We've started putting new systems in place. Some of those are actually starting to come online now. We've got a couple of big releases over the summer, and those are gonna allow us to really streamline some back office processes.
We're also, and we talked about this on earnings as well, we're also increasingly looking into ways to leverage AI. Again, you know, not necessarily on the creative side, but there's a lot of, you know, back office processes that we can radically improve. And, you know, one of the biggest remaining opportunities for us is the fact that even though we have started running the company more as one team, we're still unwinding three decades of divisional silo thinking. And, again, the ability to combine teams, to combine workflows, share best practices, decide on what the one sort of, you know, corporate process is gonna be that we implement still has tremendous, tremendous opportunity. And, and that's only, you know, the P&L side.
We've also talked about, you know, cash focus, which was never really a thing.
Yeah.
There were a lot of projects in flight when we combined the two companies that, from a return on investment perspective, probably should have never been greenlit. Because in success, it was clear that shareholders wouldn't do well with it.
Yeah.
So, you know, we've completely retooled the entire decision-making process and systems landscape for those kinds of decisions. There's a lot more focus now on cash, literally from the initial investment to collecting the last dollar on the revenue receivable side. I've been very clear that I think the cash flow opportunity, the cash conversion opportunity, has, you know, a lot more room for very long and sustained improvement.
Great. Maybe to close out, it'd be great to hear your view on WBD's overall portfolio of businesses. There's a lot of blocks in the ecosystem right now, the possibility for certain assets coming up for sale. Are you content with the portfolio? Are there areas where, you know, you think M&A could be appropriate at the right price?
Well, again, certainly not breaking news here. You know, we've been very clear before. We have an active BD department, and we are at a point in the industry where there is a lot of change, which means a lot of opportunity. So nobody should be surprised to see our name pop up in all kinds of processes. We'll, you know, do the right thing and make sure that our board is in a position to decide on opportunities should they arise. That said, you know, there isn't anything specific going on right now, and there doesn't have to be anything specific going on right now because we have a phenomenal portfolio. We have what we need, and we don't really have anything material that we don't need. The...
If you look at where the company is trading right now, you know, I think there's a tremendous value creation opportunity. You know, the studio alone and the D2C business alone could be, you know, carrying what we're currently valued at. And we've, that's what we're very focused on, making sure that we get the studio back to, you know, the earnings level that it can easily generate, and that we get the stepping stones in place for JB, Casey, and the team to build a long-term, you know, dynamically growing and profitable D2C business. We're very focused on, you know, executing that playbook here. We've got the offense line up on the field, and we're gonna keep working on it.
I have no doubt that we're gonna do very well within the current corporate structure.
Okay, great way to end it. Thanks so much for being here.
Thank you.