Bulletins

WarnerMedia and Discovery are merging to take on Netflix

WarnerMedia and Discovery are merging to take on Netflix
WarnerMedia and Discovery are merging, the companies announced, creating a new public media giant meant to take on Netflix.

AT&T will get $43 billion from the new merger, with its shareholders owning 71% of the new company. Discovery's David Zaslav will lead the new entity, and it's not clear what will happen to WarnerMedia's Jason Kilar, who isn't mentioned in the press release.

AT&T bought WarnerMedia as part of its $85 billion Time Warner acquisition, which closed in 2018. The spinout appears to signal AT&T getting out of the content game, and going back to its roots of focusing on telecoms services — something Verizon looks to be doing too, with the recent sale of its media assets to private equity company Apollo.

 Shakeel Hashim

Shakeel Hashim ( @shakeelhashim) is a former growth manager at Protocol, based in London. He was previously an analyst at Finimize covering business and economics, and a digital journalist at News UK. His writing has appeared in The Economist and its book, Uncommon Knowledge.

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