[ad_1]
AT&T is nearing a deal to combine its Warner Media content unit with rival Discovery to create a media giant with a business value of $ 150 billion, just years after acquiring the owner of CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., as people reported on the subject. .
The AT&T board of directors met Sunday to approve the deal, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. The agreed deal is expected to be announced in the coming days, these people said.
The combination would merge one of Hollywood’s most valuable catalogs, covering Warner Bros. film and television studios, the HBO network, and a portfolio of cable channels, including CNN, with Discovery, which has been successful with a new targeted broadcast service. in the kitchen without scripts and at home. renovation shows.
After years of watching Netflix dominate the broadcasting landscape, the world’s largest media and technology companies have tried to struggle with their own services. Over the past year and a half, Disney, Apple, WarnerMedia, Comcast, Discovery and others have launched streaming platforms as they fight for a piece of the future of entertainment.
The structure of the deal is not yet clear, but AT&T, which has a market value of about $ 230 billion, is expected to control most of the combined entity. Discovery has a market value of $ 24 billion.
AT&T’s decision to merge its content division with Discovery comes five years after it agreed to take over Time Warner for $ 85.4 billion as the telecommunications company sought to transform itself into the world’s largest vertically distributed distribution and content company.
In 2019, AT&T CEO John Stankey and Discovery chief David Zaslav discussed combining their programming into a single broadcast service for about $ 8 a month (excluding HBO). But when Disney revealed it would offer its huge amount of Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel and Disney classics for just $ 7 a month for Disney Plus, they rejected the plan. Instead, Stankey combined HBO with the rest of WarnerMedia’s programming into one product, which was called HBO Max.
Bloomberg first reported on talks between AT&T and Discovery. AT&T and Discovery declined to comment.
[ad_2]
Source link
