Paramount+ just had its best quarter ever at keeping subscribers from leaving. The company behind it, Paramount Skydance, reported that milestone on Aug 4 2026, the same day it raised its full-year profit forecast.
The company also told investors not to worry about the delays around its planned Warner Bros. Discovery merger. The deal is still moving, just on a slower clock.
For the three months that ended June 30, Paramount Skydance posted net income of $41 million, or 4 cents a share. That compares with $57 million, or 8 cents a share, in the same stretch a year earlier.
Analysts had penciled in 15 cents a share, but that figure reflects adjusted earnings, so it doesn't compare directly with the reported number. Revenue of $6.91 billion came in just above the $6.88 billion that Wall Street expected, and it climbed modestly from a year earlier.
The growth came from the parts of the business that face consumers directly. Streaming revenue from Paramount+, BET+ and Pluto TV rose 9% to $2.47 billion.
Paramount+ added 2 million subscribers in the quarter, bringing its global total to 81.6 million.
The film studio also did its part, with sales climbing 16% to $1.31 billion. The bigger slate is helping: the company said its theatrical lineup expanded to 15 titles from eight.
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TV media revenue fell 9% to $3.13 billion, though the company says cost cuts and better creative execution lifted profits in that business anyway.
The bigger storyline is the merger. The Skydance-Paramount deal closed almost a year ago, with David Ellison now running the company as CEO.
The next move is combining with Warner Bros. Discovery, but state attorneys general have filed an antitrust lawsuit that is slowing things down. Paramount has agreed to let the deal close no later than June 2027, after initially planning to wrap it up by the end of September.
A court filing on Aug 4 set the trial for March 2027. The merger has already cleared its biggest regulatory hurdles, including approval from the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division and international regulators.
In a shareholder letter, Ellison said the company remains confident the deal will be completed, creating a stronger and more competitive media company.
Paramount Skydance now expects full-year 2026 profit, measured by adjusted EBITDA (a figure that strips out interest, taxes and some other costs), to come in at $3.8 billion to $3.9 billion. The company pointed to merger-related savings as the reason.
It expects to save $3 billion from the Skydance combination. It keeps its 2026 revenue projection at $30 billion, which would be up 4% from a year earlier.
Streaming subscription and ad revenue should keep accelerating through the year, the company said, helped by the early payoff from combining Paramount+'s and Pluto TV's technology. For the third quarter, the company expects revenue of $6.95 billion to $7.15 billion, with Paramount+ subscriber additions staying roughly flat compared with the second quarter.
So what does all this mean for investors? The core business is stabilizing, with streaming retention at a record high and a bigger film slate than a year ago.
The merger timeline is now clear even if it is long, with a trial in March 2027 and a deal deadline of June 2027. That puts the outcome months away, not weeks.
Until then, the streaming numbers are the ones that matter for your portfolio, because that is the part of the business the company actually controls. The profit upgrade is a sign the strategy is working, and the subscriber numbers are backing it up.
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