AT&T is close to creating a $ 150 billion streaming giant with Discovery

AT&T is reaching an agreement to find Warner Media its content unit with its opponent and create a giant company worth $ 150 billion, a few years after it acquired ownership of CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., people reported the matter. .

The AT&T board of directors met on Sunday to approve the deal, said two people with direct knowledge of the issue. These people believe that the agreed agreement will be announced in the coming days.

The combination would combine one of Hollywood’s most valuable catalogs – Warner Bros. film and television studios, including HBO and cable network CNN – with Discovery, a success with a new streaming service for unwritten cooking and home. renovation shows.

After years of seeing the Netflix streaming landscape dominate, the world’s largest media and technology companies have tried to fight with their services. Over the past year and a half, Disney, Apple, WarnerMedia, Comcast, Discovery and others have launched streaming platforms while fighting for a future part of entertainment.

The structure of the deal is unclear but AT&T, with a market value of $ 230 billion, is expected to control a majority of the combined entity. The discovery has a $ 24 billion market.

AT & T’s decision to merge its content division with Discovery comes after the acquisition of Time Warner At $ 85.4 million because the telecommunications company wanted to become the largest company in the world of vertically integrated content and distribution.

In 2019, AT&T CEO John Stankey and Discovery chief David Zaslav discussed combining programming into a single streaming service for about $ 8 a month (excluding HBO). But when Disney revealed that it would offer a massive set of Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel and Disney classics for just $ 7 a month for Disney Plus, they canceled the plan. Instead, Stankey combined it with the rest of HBO WarnerMedia’s programming in a product called HBO Max.

Bloomberg first reported on the talks between AT&T and Discovery. AT&T and Discovery declined to comment.