back to article AT&T wants Time Warner

AT&T is reportedly working on a deal to acquire media giant Time Warner. The Wall Street Journal reports that the two sides are in "advanced talks" on a tie-up that would give AT&T control of a media empire that would include the Warner Bros studio, CNN and HBO. Though the report does not list any possible terms, any possible …

  1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Oh god, it's the late 1990ies all over again... a new generation of PHB MBAs must have risen to the top.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Windows

      I remember that one

      Wasn't the Time-Warner merger the biggest crater of history ever? (till the 21st century started of course, and it's not over yet ... by far!)

      The vague memories of silly lead articles in The Economist bubble up....

  2. Grade%

    Did Someone order a DeathStar?

    That'll be 100bn please. Plus tip.

    Ugh.

  3. pavementeater

    Not sure how this merger would happen... AT&T doesn't have money for a large priced buy out or merger beyond/ greater than 50 billion. They have tons of debt and very little cash.

    at&t is valued at 230 billion has about 7.5 billion in cash and over 120billion in Debt. Time Warner is valued at 68 billion + billions more to merge or buy out. God knows how much debt TW has.

    Their stock is just 3 tiers above Junk stock ...

    If anything happens this would have to be the two companies coming together making a deal to create some kind of new media company / joint venture and once both company make enough money for each other the other one completely then swallows up the other... Kind of like a twisted Version of what SBC did to Bell South with their Cingular Wireless joint venture.

    SBC / AT&T has piss poor CEO who's only grown with the company is by buy outs and not expanding and improving anything that they have... He's doing exactly what IBM did in the late 90's and early 2000s.IBM growth was all done by buying out companies to show growth instead on investing in the core and sub companies.

    Randal has done this as a CEO and he's left everything else to rot. AT&T is like an over weight animal or person who is eating everything they can get their hands on. Sure they have been growing in size but the growth is not a good healthy growth but an unhealthy one where their body / company is just going to give up on itself and die.

    1. Blotto Silver badge

      Yet it's happened!!!

      I think you need a new crystal ball.

  4. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Nooooo!

    Considering the reputation of both companies, this would be a nightmare for the poor users victims.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Nooooo!

      Indeed. This trend of mega-mergers will not end well for us customers. The myth of "you have a choice for broadband" is just that, a myth, and it's becoming worse every time one of these mergers pops up.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nooooo!

        Maybe there should be a Nobel Prize for most fattest completely pointless mega-merger.

        It would be in the spirit of the times.

  5. Mage Silver badge
    Devil

    Delivery and Content

    Combining content creation and owning channels is good. The UK idea of BBC divesting content creation is nuts.

    Combining Content/Channels and a delivery platform is evil. We've seen that in Ireland and UK with Sky.

    1. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: Delivery and Content

      And imagine if Sky, BT/EE and Virgin Media were the same company. That is what this merger is like.

  6. Aladdin Sane

    Haven't they tried this before?

    AOL Time Warner anybody?

  7. John Styles

    These deals are all very confusing. After all AT&T (now) isn't AT&T (then).

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