Interestingly, it seems that this deal came together really quickly in just the last few days, and that Discovery being aggressive may have effectively “stolen” WarnerMedia out from under NBCU/Comcast who were considered the ones to watch once it became fairly common knowledge that ATT was going to sell off WM.
And woof, AT&T. In the last few years they’ve acquired for big money and then sold off at a loss DirecTV, Uverse, and now (presumably) WarnerMedia.
WarnerMedia is apparently a drag on revenue from ATT’s core business I guess. Or something.
I’m having trouble remembering, does Discovery media have anything besides reality shows at this point?
Edit: Judging by this article from March on best stuff to watch on Discovery+ (Discovery Media’s recent streaming service), it sounds like it’s mostly reality shows, but they do still do some documentaries too, like “mysterious planet”.
It was a deal that never made sense for ATT. It was like one of those “Something + ?? = Profit” memes. ATT proudly said: “Now we own a bunch of the content that will be streaming across our networks.” And shareholders and analysts were: “And…?”
They also have $$$. :) And lots of it.
AT&T was $160 billion in debt when they acquired Warner, and then assumed all of Warner’s debt. Then AT&T owed $183 billion.
It never made sense.
Yeah, they have a lot of them via the TLC and Discovery Life channels, but on Discovery+ the “Nature & Animals” and “Science & Technology” categories have quite a bit of very good content. For those interested it may be worth the price of admission. They stream BBC (Planet Earth), Science, Animal Planet, etc. channels so some excellent content is available.
I think the only way that they could’ve gotten it into the remotest realm of making sense is if ATT had some grand and bold plan to go super entrepreneurial in the streaming/content/entertainment space to do something new and unprecedented.
And that’s kinda not ATT’s thing. This was the Scheinhardt Wig Company all over again.
With so many services here is a great recap for people a bit out of the streaming loop, like myself.
Matt_W
2002
This channel is perfect for my partner and her daughter, who both love baking and crafting shows. But I really enjoyed Mysterious Planet with my son, and there are a bunch of other nature documentaries on there too. David Schwimmer’s narration is surprisingly charming and funny–he constantly breaks the fourth wall to tell self-deprecatory jokes and make amusing quips.
Nice. I hope the merger means that they’ll be combined into one streaming service. Though I suppose they could go the Disney route, who kept a separate Disney+ and Hulu and ESPN+.
I really hope they don’t merge them, not that we’re getting HBO Max here any time soon. There’s nothing on Discovery+ that appeals to me (we get the BBC stuff here for “free”, of course), so I’d rather have a more streamlined service at hopefully a lower cost.
Menzo
2005
I wonder for how many people $14.99 HBO Max is too expensive, but $9.99 HBO Max with ads and no same-day premiers isn’t.
I mean, the price I would pay for ad-supported content is “you better pay me” but certainly no higher than zero, so I’m obviously not the target. YMMV. (I will say that the only reason I have Hulu is because they gave it to me for free.)
Hulu does have an ad-free option. When I’m subscribed there it’s always what I choose.
Yeah, but I don’t care about it enough to pay for it. Especially when they treat PC users as not just second class but like, fourth class citizens.
Now you’ve got me curious, because as a PC user I’ve never had a problem with them. What are they doing? Other than the odd lack of a watch history on the web version, I mean.
