AT&T recently completed its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner, a deal designed to help traditional media companies compete better with nimble tech services such as Netflix. Soon after the deal closed, AT&T launched WatchTV, a $15-a-month streaming service that offers more than 30 TV channels, including Time Warner channels TNT and TBS. David Christopher, who runs AT&T’s wireless and entertainment businesses, talks about how people are consuming media and what role wireless companies play.
The company, which was owned by the Chernin Group and includes video and streaming offerings, was sold in a deal that values Otter at more than $1 billion.
The telecom giant, which just acquired Time Warner, is seeking to drastically change the premium cable channel in order to compete with the likes of Netflix.
Over the last few months, disputes between programmers and distributors have moved to a new level of conflict with allegations that institutionalized racism at large media companies is driving discriminatory business decisions. The latest involves Univision accusing AT&T of refusing to pay the company’s Spanish-language stations retransmission fees on a par with its English-language network counterparts in a new contract with U-Verse.
