The streaming wars just took an interesting turn. AT&T, who just acquired Time Warner five years ago, have struck a $43B deal with Discovery, Inc. that will spinoff WarnerMedia to Discovery and form an entirely new media company, or as the press release states, a “premier, standalone global entertainment company.”
Basically, AT&T is getting out of the entertainment business, perhaps not really digging how much of a challenge it’s been for HBO Max, which launched awkwardly just a year ago.
So what does this mean? Well, I guess if you were really hoping to see a crossover between Grocery Games and Titans, this might be the chance. All of the WarnerMedia assets, which includes Warner Bros., HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network, Cinemax, TBS, TNT, Adult Swim, and DC Comics, will exist under the same umbrella as Discovery, Food Network, HGTV, OWN, TLC, and Animal Planet.
Don’t be surprised if somewhere down the line we see the companies’ two streaming services, HBO Max and Discovery+, merged into one. That has not been announced just yet.
I’m not going to go through all of the business mumbo jumbo. It’s unclear what this actually will mean for the future, but these sorts of deals always have major ramifications. For us as movie fans, it could mean yet another restructuring at Warner Bros., which could have a drastic impact on their future slate. We will just have to wait and see. Look for John Oliver to have some fun jokes at AT&T’s expensive on the next episode of Last Week Tonight.
