What is AT&T new name?
It also suggests a simple fact that AT&T recently declared that they would change their company’s name to “Warner Bros. Discovery”. This rebranding occurred after AT&T Internet decided to spin WarnerMedia off as a separate company through a merger with Discovery Inc. early this year 2022. Therefore, what does this name change mean and what is the future for the newly christened Warner Bros. Discovery media conglomerate?
How AT&T got WarnerMedia and what’s next?
To understand the rationale for the name change it is important to go back to 2016 when AT&T completed the acquisition of Time Warner for more than $85 billion. This put them in charge of stations such as HBO, CNN, and Warner Bros., and also a storehouse of programming. The thought behind it was that content and distribution would enable AT&T to provide a much better challenge to Netflix and Disney.
However, a few years later, AT&T changed its mind, or probably a new set of managers came up with a different idea. They decided to divest from media businesses under a new CEO and instead concentrate on connectivity operations. So in 2021, they entered into a strategic partnership to combine WarnerMedia with Discovery which operates such networks as HGTV, Food Network, TLC, etc. The nearly $43 billion deal estranged WarnerMedia and merged it with Discovery, reversing their big-bang earlier deal.
In the transaction, AT&T shareholders got shares equal to 71% of the new Warner Bros. Discovery company. Discovery shareholders own 29%. The merger was made effective in April 2022 and this means that the new Warner Bros. Discovery’s shares for trading under the new symbol known as WBD.
What does the New Name stand for?
After the WarnerMedia merger with Discovery Communications is now complete, the new company will be named Warner Bros. The brand that Warner Bros. company is based on traces its origins back to Warner Bros. studio established in 1923. It has a rich background of famous movies, series, and heroes.
The new Warners Bros Discovery implies the depth of content that the company now owns with such brands as Warner Bros. film and TV studio, HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network, DC Comics, Discovery Channel, HGTV, and many others.
CEO David Zaslav maintained that retaining the Warner Bros. name was extremely important “because of the power of that brand and what it represents.”
Discovery is not so well-known as Turner but it has some of the best-rated cable networks with a major focus on reality shows. Combined with WarnerMedia as a part of the merger, the company has a huge and diverse portfolio of entertainment, news, and sports brands relevant to global audiences in the field of films, television shows, and streaming services.
What lies ahead for the conglomerate of Warner Bros. Discovery?
Moving to the future, there are several strategic objectives set by Warner Bros Discovery as a consolidated company. First, they plan to build on their direct-to-consumer business such as HBO Max and Discovery+. There are opportunities to share content libraries and to promote their streaming platforms more actively to subscribers as they compete with Netflix, Disney+, and others.
Expansions will also be directed at expanding their international sports offerings in areas such as Europe where Discovery has exclusive rights to the Olympics among other events. As for WarnerMedia, which now becomes Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio ambitions to create content on a large scale, releasing up to 150 films and series per year across the brands and networks. When they also delivered $3 billion of promised synergy savings, they expected that greater scale would result in greater original programming output.
However, the process of synergistically merging two distinct media corporations cannot run smoothly in the coming months and there will be some obstacles in this way. The realization of several business functions including ad sales to streaming of tech features is always a challenge. Having over 20,000 employees join forces some of whom are bound to have overlap in responsibilities is sure to have cultural differences. The degree to which Warner Bros Discovery will be able to manage these challenges will define whether the name change was a masterstroke a missed opportunity or a story of what might have been. For now, Warner Bros. Discovery continues to operate to become a diverse media conglomerate that could adapt to the current environment.
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