AT&T considering buying Time Warner
Company seeks to expand its media footprint to compete
Telecom giant AT&T has been in talks recently to possibly buy Time Warner, Bloomberg reports.
The talks are informal and are focused on “building relations between the companies rather than establishing the terms of a specific transaction,” the report said, citing anonymous sources.
Time Warner, which owns HBO, Warner Bros., CNN, TNT, TBS and Bleacher Report, declined to comment. AT&T, which owns DirecTV and provides wireless and Internet services, also declined to comment.
Shares of Time Warner rose 5% on Thursday to end regular-hours trading at $82.99. AT&T fell 2% to $38.65.
Consumers are rapidly flocking to digital media and increasingly ditching their traditional cable and satellite TV offerings. In response, telecommunications service providers are eager to diversify their revenue sources beyond just providing their “pipes” for distributing media content.
In July, Verizon, which offers cable TV, wireless and Internet services, agreed to pay $4.8 billion to buy Yahoo’s core businesses, including Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance. Last year, Verizon also paid $4.4 billion to buy AOL.
AT&T has been moving more slowly to broaden its media content portfolio. Last year, it paid about $49 billion to buy satellite TV service provider DirecTV, a deal that expanded its pay-TV market reach nationwide. With more customers subscribing to its Internet, wireless and TV offerings, AT&T now plans to focus on buying more media and entertainment companies, Bloomberg reported.
Time Warner’s assets, particularly HBO, sports programming and Warner Bros., are highly prized by other media companies. In July, 2014, 21st Century Fox, controlled by billionaire mogul Rupert Murdoch, offered to pay about $80 billion for Time Warner, or $84 a share in cash and stock. If completed, it would have been at the time the largest media merger since the disastrous AOL purchase of Time Warner for $162 billion in 2000.
A month later, Murdoch withdrew the offer after Time Warner Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes said his company was worth more and rejected it.
Time Warner once operated a cable TV service unit but spun it off in 2009 to focus on media content businesses.
Time Warner Cable, the spunoff business, was acquired by Charter Communications last year for $56 billion.