AT&T in negotiations to acquire Time Warner

[MRP]

According to the Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-is-...ner-1477061850 and other sources, AT&T is on the verge of acquiring Time Warner and all it's subsidiaries (DC Comics, TNT, TBS, CNN, the coveted premium channel HBO, and the Warner Bros. film and TV studio, etc.) and the acquisition could happen as early as this weekend, but could also fall apart.

Be interesting to see the fallout if At&T does acquire TW and what they attempt to do to streamline it and make it work more profitably for them. I wonder how interested they are in things like DC Comics and Time Warner Books in the print realm as AT&T seems to be focused much more on visual entertainment content providers in the acquisition.

-M

[Mr.Marion]

I'm not a fan of these corporate monopolies. It's too much a conflict of interest. Phones, news, Tv, comics all being owned by the same company. We are all going to be living in 1984 very soon.

Part of the coolness of Marvel was it was a small company and had a bullpen you could keep track of.

[MRP]

Looks like the deal was agreed upon in principle, for $85 billion ($110 per share) and an announcement could come as early as Sunday. Again, interesting to see how it plays out.

-M

[jwyblejr]

Wouldn't AT&T owning DirecTV put a crimp in things?

[MRP]

Wouldn't AT&T owning DirecTV put a crimp in things?

I'm not sure. It hasn't seem to been an issue because there are other dish and cable providers out there still, but this is the third attempt for someone to buy Time Warner in the last year or so, one got shot down by the fed and one fell apart at the last minute, so we'll see if this one goes through. But AT&T having the U-verse service didn't hold up them acquiring DirectTV when they did that recently either, so who knows.

-M

[hedrap]

Time-Warner Cable was spun off of Time-Warner years ago. TWCable was bought by Liberty and merged with Charter cable to become Spectrum.

There's no conflict or monopoly. ATT is buying TW to bolster DirectTV. They plan on offering exclusive content and channels as long as better bundle packages. For example, buying Time-Warner gives ATT Turner Sports, which owns half the NBA broadcast rights. Like the NFL package, DirectTV could bundle all NBA games as part of their service and not a separate price tier. It's ironic as it shows the cable spinoff was short-sighted.

As for the publishing end, I don't see ATT changing much right now. Publishing mainly exists as IP development for film/tv, so dismantling that only makes content production more complicated. For example, WB wouldn't have the Harry Potter rights if they sold Little, Brown in the 90's when they started Time-Warner Cable. They waited until 2006, before Deathly Hollows was released. You also have exclusive content for mobile devices. This could allow ATT to offer TW publications through their exclusive apps.

If the sale doesn't occur, then an underperforming Wonder Woman is going to lead to large firings. The best deal would have been FOX-TW. It would have triggered the Marvel rights release, Fox would have willingly let them go and Schuler-Donner would have ended up as Fox's co-producers on DC projects.

[Figuremod73]

Looks like AT&T and Time-Warner are going thru with it. It'll take awhile for approval.