Why AT&T and WarnerMedia split

Recode Daily

Recode

Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

AT&T bought WarnerMedia three years ago for more than $100 billion, so it could chase after Netflix. Now it’s getting out of streaming, and every other part of the media business. What happened? And what happens next? New York Times media reporter Edmund Lee joins Peter Kafka, host of the Recode Media podcast, to discuss. This is just a preview of a longer and deeper conversation. Hear the rest on the Recode Media podcast: https://bit.ly/3bBlXkr Enjoyed this episode? Rate Recode Daily ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Read Peter's story for Recode on the AT&T and Warner Media split: https://bit.ly/3wiYSLp What do you want to learn about on Recode Daily? Send your requests, questions or anything, really, to recodedaily@recode.net. We read every email! Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Recode Daily by subscribing in your favorite podcast app. Support Recode Daily by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	5 years ago, AT&T, one of the big phone giants announced it was buying WarnerMedia, one
0:15.6	of the big media giants.
0:18.0	It was a huge deal at the time, but now AT&T wants a do-over.
0:23.2	This week, the company announced that it was going to merge WarnerMedia with Discovery
0:27.9	Inc. another cable TV company, or in other words, the folks behind Game of Thrones might
0:34.0	be merging with the people behind HGTV.
0:38.1	Peter Kafka and the Recode Media Podcast have a new episode out this week that explains
0:42.7	the wild world of media mergers we want to share part of it with you today.
0:47.3	Here's Peter.
0:48.3	I'm talking to Edmond Lee from the New York Times, where he was a corporate media reporter
0:54.6	and in older times, I used to compete with Ed, back when he was in Bloomberg, and in
1:00.0	between those two things, Ed was my boss at Recode.
1:04.0	Welcome, Ed.
1:05.0	It's about time, man.
1:06.4	I don't know how long it took for me to get on your damn show after all this time.
1:10.4	It took a giant unmerger, exactly right.
1:14.4	We are talking, obviously, about AT&T and WarnerMedia and Discovery, thanks for making
1:19.8	a few minutes to chat about it.
1:22.2	I have so many questions, but here's the big one.
1:25.0	What happened?
1:26.0	Why did AT&T decide five years ago they wanted to spend more than $100 billion, including
1:31.1	debt, to buy what was then called Time Warner, and then announced, no, no, no, actually,
	...

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