AT&T company officials were characteristically quiet about the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger during the AT&T 2Q earnings call on Thursday morning, only saying that “no news is good news.”
AT&T CEO John Stankey was asked about the mega-deal during the call. All he would say was that regulatory due diligence work was continuing on the deal.
The two companies announced the merger in May in a deal that would see AT&T shareholders owning 71% of the new entity.
“Regulatory agencies and documents are being reviewed,” Stankey said. (We should) “Expect this to take a full year before a deal is done. It’s not a complicated transaction. We’re expecting a full and fulsome review.”
Stankey went on to say that no surprises had emerged and that he expected the deal to close as expected during the first half of next year.
Max
Max is a subscription video streaming service that gives access to the full HBO library, along with exclusive Max Originals. There are hubs for content from TLC, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, TCM, Cartoon Network, Travel Channel, ID, and more. Watch hit series like “The Last of Us,” “House of the Dragon,” “Succession,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and more. Thanks to the B/R Sports add-on, users can watch NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, and NASCAR events.
The combined company currently spends $20 billion a year on content, which is similar to that of Netflix.
The deal will bring together movie studio Warner Bros., along with linear TV networks like CNN, TBS, TNT, Discovery, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, and Animal Planet.
It will also see HBO Max and discovery+ absorbed by the new parent. It is not yet known whether the two services will be merged – or bundled as two separate services.
AT&T bought Time Warner in 2018 for $85B. This is the third major transaction by AT&T in recent months. In February, the company sold a 30% stake in DirecTV to private equity firm Apollo. The company also sold Crunchyroll to Sony in December for $1.175 Billion.
discovery+
discovery+ is a video streaming service that offers more than 70,000 episodes of 2,500+ current and classic shows from several popular TV brands including Discovery, Investigation Discovery, HGTV, TLC, Food Network, A&E, Lifetime, and History.