Multinational media and entertainment corporation Paramount (NASDAQ:PSKY) announced better-than-expected revenue in Q1 CY2026, with sales up 2.2% year on year to $7.35 billion. The company expects the full year’s revenue to be around $30 billion, close to analysts’ estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.23 per share was 51.4% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
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Paramount (PSKY) Q1 CY2026 Highlights:
- Revenue: $7.35 billion vs analyst estimates of $7.27 billion (2.2% year-on-year growth, 1.1% beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $0.23 vs analyst estimates of $0.15 (51.4% beat)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $1.16 billion vs analyst estimates of $897.1 million (15.8% margin, 29.4% beat)
- The company reconfirmed its revenue guidance for the full year of $30 billion at the midpoint
- EBITDA guidance for the full year is $3.8 billion at the midpoint, above analyst estimates of $3.60 billion
- Operating Margin: 8.4%, in line with the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow Margin: 1.3%, similar to the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $12.5 billion
Company Overview
Owner of Spongebob Squarepants and formerly known as ViacomCBS, Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PSKY) is a major media conglomerate offering television, film production, and digital content across various global platforms.
Revenue Growth
Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can have short-term success, but a top-tier one grows for years. Unfortunately, Paramount’s 2.1% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was weak. This fell short of our benchmarks and is a tough starting point for our analysis.
We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within consumer discretionary, a stretched historical view may miss a company riding a successful new product or trend. Paramount’s performance shows it grew in the past but relinquished its gains over the last two years, as its revenue fell by 1.8% annually. 
We can dig further into the company’s revenue dynamics by analyzing its three most important segments: TV Media, Direct-to-Consumer, and Filmed Entertainment, which are 49.9%, 32.6%, and 17.5% of revenue. Over the last two years, Paramount’s TV Media revenue (broadcasting) averaged 15.4% year-on-year declines, but its Direct-to-Consumer (streaming) and Filmed Entertainment (movies) revenues averaged 12.5% and 37.2% growth. 
This quarter, Paramount reported modest year-on-year revenue growth of 2.2% but beat Wall Street’s estimates by 1.1%.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 3.2% over the next 12 months. While this projection indicates its newer products and services will fuel better top-line performance, it is still below average for the sector.
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Operating Margin
Paramount’s operating margin has been trending up over the last 12 months, but it still averaged negative 5.3% over the last two years. This is due to its large expense base and inefficient cost structure.
In Q1, Paramount generated an operating margin profit margin of 8.4%, in line with the same quarter last year. This indicates the company’s overall cost structure has been relatively stable.
Earnings Per Share
Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.
Sadly for Paramount, its EPS declined by 37.5% annually over the last five years while its revenue grew by 2.1%. This tells us the company became less profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.
In Q1, Paramount reported adjusted EPS of $0.23, down from $0.29 in the same quarter last year. Despite falling year on year, this print easily cleared analysts’ estimates. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Paramount’s full-year EPS of $0.45 to grow 66.5%.
Key Takeaways from Paramount’s Q1 Results
It was good to see Paramount beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also excited its EBITDA outperformed Wall Street’s estimates by a wide margin. Zooming out, we think this was a good print with some key areas of upside. The stock traded up 3.5% to $11.51 immediately following the results.
Paramount had an encouraging quarter, but one earnings result doesn’t necessarily make the stock a buy. Let’s see if this is a good investment. When making that decision, it’s important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).