AT&T acquiring Time Warner on shifting media terrain
LAGUNA BEACH, UNITED STATES: The proposed megamerger of AT&T and Time Warner comes as media companies maneuver to remain relevant to audiences increasingly turning to the Internet for entertainment.
The top executives from the companies on Tuesday made their case for the merger, valued at US$108.7 billion, at a prestigious Wall Street Journal technology conference where titans including Netflix and YouTube weighed in on the deal and the future of television.
“The intent is to bring Time Warner and AT&T together to make a different kind of competitor in the ecosystem,” the US telecommunication’s titan’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, said during an on-stage chat at WSJD Live.
He buttressed his point by announcing that AT&T will launch a DirectTV Now streaming service in the US that costs US$35 monthly, comes with unlimited streaming to mobile devices, and boasts more than 100 channels.
Stephenson said that a goal of the merger is to create a competitor to cable service in this country, and depicted a not-to-distant future in which set-top boxes are obsolete because viewers get their content directly from the Internet.
Time Warner, if the deal clears regulatory hurdles, will become a launchpad for innovations in pricing, advertising and delivery, according to Stephenson.
After the deal was announced Saturday public interest groups, politicians and regulators signaled it would come under tough scrutiny.
Stephenson on Tuesday referred to criticism as ‘uninformed comments’ and expressed confidence that any concerns brought up by regulators would be remedied.
The heads of global streaming television service Netflix and video-sharing colossus YouTube voiced no opposition to the proposed merger during on- stage interviews at WSJD Live.
Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings said that he didn’t oppose the merger “as long as HBO’s bits and Netflix’s bits are treated the same.” — AFP