AT&T, Discovery combine media brands in $43bn deal

AT&T is joining its media operations with Discovery’s in a $43bn deal that would produce a new company in direct competition with Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney and Comcast.

AT&T will join its media operations with those owned by Discovery, creating a new company in a $43bn deal that will oversee CNN, HBO, TNT and TBS along with Discovery’s Food Network, HGTV and others. With the agreement on Monday, AT&T is pulling back from a years-long campaign to break into the streaming and entertainment sector, where big players are slugging it out with increasingly large war chests dedicated to premium and original content. That arena has been flooded in the past two years with new players including those owned by AT&T and Discovery, which operate HBO Max and Discovery+, respectively.