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AT&T Plans to Spin Off Entertainment Assets (WarnerMedia) to...Discovery

ManaByte

Member

Three years ago, AT&T marched into Hollywood with big ambitions to be a 21st Century media colossus, connecting its booming cell phone business with legendary media properties — HBO, the Warner Bros. film and TV studio and Turner channels including cable news juggernaut CNN.

Now, the company is retreating from those plans.
Daunted by the challenges of competing in the streaming age and shackled by a mountain of debt, the Dallas telecommunications behemoth is poised to spin off its entertainment assets into a new venture with cable programming company Discovery, which owns HGTV, the Food Network and Animal Planet, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment.
The companies are expected to announce their proposed joint venture as early as Monday, these people said. Bloomberg News first reported that AT&T and Discovery were in advanced talks to merge the their entertainment properties.
 

Xenon

Member
Reshaping Hollywood....

loop poop GIF by Mauro Gatti
 

AJUMP23

Member
Discovery + about to get dope amounts of content.

it is thought to pivot from data provider to content maker.
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Never in a million worlds would I have thought that discovery had such deep pockets. I guess they do!
 

bitbydeath

Member
Maybe they could find someone to finish off Game of Thrones? Also they should put Michael Hirst in charge of the DCEU.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Never in a million worlds would I have thought that discovery had such deep pockets. I guess they do!
No, I don't think this is a buyout, it's a merger, designed to spin out the media division into a separate company. It's corporate restructuring shit, probably not as big a deal as it seems.
 

bitbydeath

Member
No, I don't think this is a buyout, it's a merger, designed to spin out the media division into a separate company. It's corporate restructuring shit, probably not as big a deal as it seems.
AT&T are effectively selling WarnerMedia to Discovery for 43 billion dollars, i’d consider it a buyout but maybe AT&T will get a bunch of stock out of it which leans into it also being considered as a ‘merger’.
 

sol_bad

Member
So AT&T realised they have no fucking idea what they are doing when it comes to the movie industry? Realised that releasing all their theatrical movies on HBO Max and theatrically at the same time was a dumb idea?
 

Bryank75

Banned
AT&T are effectively selling WarnerMedia to Discovery for 43 billion dollars, i’d consider it a buyout but maybe AT&T will get a bunch of stock out of it which leans into it also being considered as a ‘merger’.

That's not what is happening. Discovery wouldn't have cash to do that.

What is happening is AT&T are spinning off their media assets (most of them anyway) and merging with Discovery to form a new entity. This new entity will then pay AT&T in the form of a dividend.

AT&T will still be in massive debt despite this though...
 

Hatemachine

Banned
That's not what is happening. Discovery wouldn't have cash to do that.

What is happening is AT&T are spinning off their media assets (most of them anyway) and merging with Discovery to form a new entity. This new entity will then pay AT&T in the form of a dividend.

AT&T will still be in massive debt despite this though...
This is correct. The new company is owned something like 79% by ATT and the rest by Discovery.
 
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