In a response to earlier media mergers such as Comcast-NBCUniversal, and in an effort to adapt to a world in which consumers increasingly turn away from rather than toward the TV to access video content, AT&T this weekend announced a merger agreement with Time Warner (not Time Warner Cable, a long-separate company but one also engaged in a merger, with Charter Communications).
The $86 billion cash/stock combine, plus debt, would make AT&T-Time Warner the largest media company. Infrastructure and pay television firms across the board are moving into studios and film libraries, and vice versa, bringing content and the platforms across which to deliver it together.
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