The plunge in ad revenue comes as company executives continue to swing the ax across its multiple media properties, cutting down wide swaths of employees in an effort to make good on merger-related savings. As for CNN, ratings for the anti-Trump network still lag far behind the competition, with bright new hope Kaitlan Collins failing to connect with viewers.

On Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery reported that ad revenue for its networks tumbled 13 percent for the second quarter, compared to the same period last year.

The company cited "audience declines in domestic general entertainment and news networks and soft advertising markets mainly in the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, certain international markets."

CEO David Zaslav sounded the alarm to investors during Thursday's earnings call.

"A lot of us expected that there would be a meaningful recovery [in the ad market] in the second half of the year and we haven't seen it, and we've needed to figure out how to make up for that," he said.