Disney achieves streaming profits, The NYT gains 300,000 digital subscribers, Democratic senators ask DOJ to probe Venu, Elon Musk trashes Kamala Harris, Instagram pivots to views as its primary metric, Taylor Swift cancels Vienna shows after a terror plot is foiled, "Interstellar" gets a December re-release date, "Deadpool & Wolverine" prepares to join $1 billion club, and more. But first, the A1.

Warner in a Corner

CNN Photo Illustration/Arturo Holmes/WireImage/Getty Images

David Zaslav had a particularly tough day.

The Warner Bros. Discovery boss watched Wednesday afternoon as his company's already anemic stock price plummeted more than 10% in after-hours trading, hitting a dangerous new low of $6.90 after the company reported second quarter earnings. 

The selloff occurred after WBD posted a $9.1 billion write down on its troubled network assets. It's a reflection of how quickly the traditional television business is deteriorating and imperiling companies such as WBD, which rely on linear channels for the bulk of their revenue. WBD owns some of the most recognizable cable channels, including CNN, HGTV, TNT, and TBS — all of which have seen worrisome audience decays as cord-cutting slices overall viewership and household reach.

For WBD, the rapid decline of the legacy business has been compounded in recent weeks by its very public breakup-turned-legal battle with the NBA — its partner of four decades — after the media giant attempted to use its matching rights to snag Amazon's newly acquired $1.8 billion per year package of games.

The one bright spot in the legacy television business has been live sports programming, which continues to draw high viewership even as cable cancelations mount. WBD, which is now suing the NBA over its divorce, acknowledged on Wednesday that the potential loss of games starting with the 2025-26 season will have a financial impact on the company.

"The goodwill impairment was triggered in response to the difference between market capitalization and book value, continued softness in the U.S. linear advertising market, and uncertainty related to affiliate and sports rights renewals, including the NBA," WBD said in its financial summary.

To be fair, WBD is not the only once-high flying legacy media behemoth struggling to find its footing in a shifting landscape upended by the Netflix revolution. Paramount Global, a one-time titan, has stumbled and found enormous difficulty reorienting its business around streaming. The Shari Redstone-led company, which struck a merger deal last month with David Ellison's Skydance, has lost 27% of its value this year.

Speaking candidly to investors on the company's earnings call Wednesday, Zaslav acknowledged the dire reality of the television business.

"It’s fair to say that even two years ago, market valuations and prevailing conditions for legacy media companies were quite different than they are today," Zaslav said. "And this impairment acknowledges this."

Zaslav did talk up other parts of the WBD business, describing the company's Max streaming platform as "doing very, very well" with "tremendous upside." But even as he offered the warm sentiment, Zaslav conceded the cold reality of "tough conditions in the legacy business." 

The hole WBD now finds itself in has led to enormous chatter that the company will be forced to sell off some of its assets. During Wednesday's earnings call, chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said management is "very well aware" of its "responsibility to have a view on whatever strategic options are out there."

"We're very clearly focused on evaluating beyond just running the operational business," Wiedenfels said. "So we've said before, you shouldn't be surprised to see us engaging in whatever M&A processes are going on out there. You shouldn't be surprised to see us engaging in partnership discussions."

That said, WBD has shown a reluctance to sell any of its major assets. And whether it can get out of the corner it finds itself in without taking such a step may prove to be difficult. 

CNN Photo Illustration/Kristina Bumphrey/Variety/Getty Images

Disney's Stream Dream: Disney has joined the small club of media companies that have managed to turn a profit on streaming. The Bob Iger-led Magic Kingdom reported Wednesday that it had managed to eke out a $47 million profit from its streaming unit, which houses Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, one quarter ahead of schedule. (For comparison, last year during the same quarter, Disney posted a loss of $512 million.) "We’ve made great progress," Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston told analysts. "We were losing $1 billion a quarter not that long ago." Overall, Disney posted a quarterly profit of $2.62 billion and revenue of $23.2 billion — both of which surpassed analyst expectations. But the good news for the company was overshadowed by the not-so-good news from its parks division, which saw profits slip 3.3%, offering up another worrisome indicator for the broader U.S. economy. The WSJ's Robbie Whelan has more here.

► Shares in Disney closed down a little more than 4% on Wednesday. 

► Iger spoke about the "tremendous value" that NBA rights offer the company.

► Iger said that Disney will crack down "in earnest" on password sharing starting this fall. 

► Meanwhile, Disney might have to pay NBCU another $5 billion for Hulu. 

CNN Photo Illustration/Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Times on the Rise: Shares in The New York Times Co. closed up more than 3% after the publisher reported strong Q2 earnings Wednesday. The NYT, which continues to be one of the few bright spots in the news media, said it had added 300,000 net digital-only subscribers, meaning the newspaper now has 10.2 million digital-only subscribers. Profits were up 13.6% year-over-year to $104.7 million. Chief executive Meredith Kopit Levien called it a "strong second quarter." Levien touted not only the outlet's news offerings, but also underscored that its "lifestyle products" mean it has "complimentary offerings in big spaces, each with multiple growth levers fueling multiple revenue streams." The NYT's Katie Robertson has more. 

CNN Photo Illustration/David Swanson/Reuters

Musk Crosses the X: Will U.K. lawmakers summon Elon Musk to testify before its parliament? It's a real possibility, Politico EU's Laurie Clarke reported on Wednesday. The erratic Donald Trump-supporting billionaire has spent the last few days stoking tension amid riots in the U.K., going as far as to say that "civil war is inevitable" and to direct attacks on prime minister Keir Starmer. Musk is "the one person who is accountable to no one," the U.K.'s technology minister, Peter Kyle, said in an interview published Wednesday, adding that he can have impact "not just on public discourse, but on actual facts on the ground." Per Clarke, lawmakers would like to probe Musk on the role social media has played amid the violence in the country. Clarke has more here.

CNN Photo Illustration/Thomas Niedermueller/TAS24/Getty Images

Terror Targets Taylor: Taylor Swift on Wednesday canceled three shows in Vienna after authorities foiled plans for a terrorist attack, arresting two suspects who allegedly planned to carry it out. Swift was scheduled to bring her hit "Eras Tour" to the Austrian city Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. But upon learning of the terror plot, her concert promoter announced the pop star would no longer play the shows over security fears. "With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety," the concert promoter, Barracuda, said in a statement. CNN's Zahid Mahmood has more here.