AT&T: Last News

AT&T shares are down in pre-market trading after the telecom giant said it will spin off WarnerMedia as part of the entertainment unit’s pending $43 billion merger with Discovery.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T announced that its board has decided to spin off the telco’s interest in WarnerMedia — rather than structure the media conglom’s divestiture as a split-off.The transaction will spin off 100% of AT&T’s interest in WarnerMedia to AT&T’s existing shareholders in a pro-rata distribution, followed by the merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery to form a new company, “Warner Bros. Discovery.” The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022; previously, AT&T had targeted “mid-2022” for the close.Last week, on AT&T’s Q4 earnings call, CEO John Stankey had left said the board was still on the fence about whether to spin off WarnerMedia (and give AT&T shareholders pro-rata shares in the new Warner Bros.

In a conference call with Wall Street analysts, AT&T CEO John Stankey defended the decision to separate HBO Max from Amazon’s channels business.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAT&T CEO John Stankey told investors he expects HBO Max to recoup all of the subscribers lost last fall after WarnerMedia pulled HBO from the Amazon Prime Video Channels marketplace in September amid ongoing agita in the TV industry about the fees Amazon takes for facilitating sales of subscription TV services.During AT&T’s hourlong fourth-quarter earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Stankey also noted that market conditions have spurred price hikes by HBO Max rivals, which means that HBO Max is not the most expensive of the major domestic players at present. Stankey didn’t mention Netflix by name, but the inference was clear.Last October, AT&T reported that HBO and HBO Max lost about 1.8 million subscribers in the third quarter after the disengagement from Amazon in the previous month.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T topped Wall Street estimates for the fourth quarter of 2021, with WarnerMedia revenue driving top-line results helped by strong growth of HBO Max.The company also announced that the it expects the WarnerMedia spinoff and merger with Discovery to close by mid-March 2022. AT&T said it plans to host a virtual analyst event in the first half of March, following the close of the WarnerMedia transaction.WarnerMedia total revenues grew 15.4% to $9.9 billion, driven by content licensing revenues and strong direct-to-consumer subscription growth, AT&T said.

Mila Kunis joked she had 'a lot in common' with Demi Moore as the two women starred in a hilarious new commercial for AT&T Fiber.The ad saw Kunis, 38, and Moore, 59, play themselves at their high school reunion.The women both mistakenly believed they were about to be presented with the award for Most Admired Alum only for thesuperlative to be given to someone else.The two women certainly do have 'a lot in common', as Kunis has been married to Moore's ex-husband Ashton Kutcher since 2015. Awkward! Mila Kunis joked she had 'a lot in common' with Demi Moore as the two women starred in a hilarious new commercial for AT&T Fiber The commercial begins with the presenter announcing the award for Most Admired Alum, with Mila and Demi both assuming they are the recipients.The women are both seated at separate tables with their friends, who are also confident their pals will win the award.'Get up there!' one of Mila's friends coaxes.

Zac Efron has parterned up with AT&T and he’s starring in a new commercial for the company!

Black History Month with their 2nd annual Living Black! Empowered by AT&T celebrations. The month-long celebration is set to include a special event that will feature performances by Big Sean, H.E.R., Moneybagg Yo and Ari Lennox.

AT&T’s beaten-down stock has risen 4% today to reach a three-month high on strong subscriber numbers and auspicious signs for the pending WarnerMedia-Discovery deal.

Accusing AT&T of “callous gamesmanship,” SAG-AFTRA has filed suit against the giant media and telecommunications conglomerate in a dispute over nearly $5 million in residuals and other compensation allegedly owed to actors who appeared on Mr. Mercedes, the TV series based on the Stephen King novel that starred Brendan Gleeson and Harry Treadaway.

AT&T CEO John Stankey said the approval process for a deal to shed WarnerMedia and merge it with Discovery “is consistent with what we would have expected as we walked into it.”

John Oliver – back on air after a two-week hiatus and in studio for the first time since Covid – started in by bashing AT&T for contributions to legislators who supported the harsh new Texas abortion law.

AT&T is in talks to sell WarnerMedia’s celebrity gossip site TMZ to Fox, Deadline has confirmed, in yet another deal paring down the telco’s entertainment assets, one that comes as it prepares to spin off Warner and merge it with Discovery.

AT&T has completed the spinoff of DirecTV into a new entity part-owned by private equity firm TPG, capping a costly six-year adventure in the satellite TV business.

AT&T CEO John Stankey said the company is working closely with regulators on the WarnerMedia-Discovery deal announced in late May and so far hasn’t seen anything “that’s been particularly problematic” in the review process.

HBO and HBO Max added 2.8 million subscribers in the second quarter, reaching 47 million in the U.S. and helping parent AT&T handily beat Wall Street forecasts.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T says HBO Max is firing on all cylinders — amid fierce competition in the streaming wars — and the telco raised its expectations for HBO/HBO Max subscriber growth by the end of 2021.For the second quarter of 2021, the company reported a net gain of 2.8 million total domestic HBO Max and HBO subscribers, for a total of 47.0 million at the end of the period. That’s a gain of 10.7 million over past year in the U.S..

AT&T has sold 100% of Vrio Corp. business in Latin America to Grupo Werthhein.

Dish Network and AT&T are joining forces, though not, as some have predicted, in the pay-TV space.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDirecTV, which AT&T is in the midst of spinning off, continues to bleed subscribers — although according to the company, the loss in the second quarter of 2021 wasn’t quite as bad as it has been in recent quarters.AT&T revealed the subscriber numbers for its pay-TV video business in an SEC filing Friday related to new debt financing.

Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Alba teamed up for an event in New York City this week!