AT&T, Discovery reportedly in content merger discussions
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 17 May 2021
Even in a market where mega mergers have been the norm over the last few years, the broadcast industry is reportedly set for a shock with the news that comms giant AT&T is in advanced discussions to merge its relatively recently acquired WarnerMedia content division with Discovery Inc.
discovery 6 august 2019
Reports for the US are suggesting that the board of AT&T met on 16 May to approve the deal which could likely be sealed within the next few days. The move may likely result in a content giant worth $150 billion and would disrupt severely not just the market as a whole but in particular the direct-to-consumer subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) arena in which the two firms have growing and competitive services in the form of discovery+ and HBO Max.

A merged firm would have the necessary scale and financial clout to offer serious competition to the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. The HBO and HBO Max assets are calculated to boast in the region of 64 million customers while at the end of its first month of launch in the US in January 2021, discovery+ became the most downloaded SVOD product of its type, outgunning not only the established giants but the hitherto strongly growing fellow upstarts in particular HBO Max. The core Discovery brand is said to reach almost 90 million US homes.

HBO Max was WarnerMedia's standout performer in its last financial quarter with the service racking up 2.7 million total domestic HBO Max and HBO subscriber net additions in the quarter leading to a total of 44.2 million US domestic subscribers and nearly 64 million globally since the service was launched in May 2020. US HBO Max and HBO subscribers increased more than 11 million year-on-year, driven by HBO Max retail subscriber growth.