With the merger between AT&T and Time Warner finalised, we’ve been thinking; is the splurge on the merge worth it?
The merger itself was put into motion in 2016, but was only finalised in June 2018 due to a number of legal implications. Many are unconvinced and wary of the ‘”bigger is better’’ mentality, including President Trump who claimed the merger would “place a high concentration of power in the hands of too few’’ (no bias against CNN here at all!)
This union is particularly interesting, though, when thinking from the side of AT&T, which is more traditionally viewed as a telecoms company. AT&T are, to put it plainly, in the business of connectivity distribution, whether that’s TV, mobile or broadband.
But in a world where increasingly everyone is connected, where do you go next?
Of course you can keep connecting people and things better and faster, but telecoms businesses seem to be looking ever more to take a bigger step.
AT&T are therefore not the first telecoms company nor the last to look to the world of content production as the natural course of expansion.
So AT&T set their sights on Time Warner, the huge media and entertainment company, and now there is, under one roof, a content producer and a content distributor. This is surely no bad thing for the consumer, I’m sure some juicy and streamlined bundled packages are on the horizon…
Will we be seeing yet more movement from other brands that currently facilitate media consumption towards actually owning and producing it? After all, you’ll still need internet or TV connection in order to tune into HBO for the last season of Game of Thrones.