AT&T reportedly plans to spin off WarnerMedia and form a new media company by merging its entertainment and news properties, including HBO, Cartoon Network, TNT, TBS, and CNN, with Discovery, Inc., the company that owns several cable-based channels. In reality, including HGTV, Food Network, and Animal Planet.
This is a dramatic change for AT&T, as the communications giant spent $ 85 billion to buy Time Warner Inc. just three years ago with the specific intention of having the WarnerMedia properties under one roof, but now they are shifting. tactic.
There have been two major issues for AT&T since the company bought Time Warner, Inc. The first, of course, is that the country was hit by a pandemic, which has drastically affected every industry in the world, so naturally, has had an impact. impact on AT&T (especially since one of WarnerMedia’s biggest assets is the Warner Bros. movie studio, which had to deal with closed theaters around the world just as the company had a number of major new releases like Wonder Woman 1984 and Principle established for 2020).
The second is that AT & T’s buying spree of recent years has left the company with massive debt, especially due to a recent acquisition of radio waves from the Federal Communications Commission to help its communications business, as moving forward with its 5G wireless deployment. The company spent $ 23 billion (behind only Verizon’s $ 45 billion, and note that Verizon quickly sold AOL and Yahoo! to help fund its own expenses).
Discovery tried to get into the streaming business with Discoery +, but obviously its reality-based content pales in the face of WarnerMedia’s vast collection of content for its HBO Max service. With the companies combined, the collection streaming service will be a behemoth that could possibly compete with Netflix and Disney + on a more even playing field. It is not yet clear who will be in charge of the combined media company, whether it is WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar and Discovery CEO David Zaslav.
None of the reports of the spin-off have specifically discussed DC Comics, but it will almost certainly move along with the rest of WarnerMedia as AT&T concentrates on the wireless business.
Source – Los Angeles Times via CBR.com
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