Time Warner

AT&T’s proposed $85 billion takeover of Time Warner will, in part, help the combined companies push video distribution innovation that may have been slowed by cable companies. During a call this morning to discuss the merger, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said various cable companies and other distributors “took a long time” to create direct-to-consumer VOD offerings across all networks because negotiations between various pay TV providers and network groups held up the process.”

The acquisition would combine a telecom giant that owns a leading cellphone business, DirecTV and internet service with the company behind some of the world’s most popular entertainment, including “Game of Thrones,” the “Harry Potter” franchise and professional basketball. It’s the latest big media acquisition by a major cable or phone company — deals like Comcast’s 2011 purchase of NBC Universal, all aimed at shoring up businesses upended by the internet.

At a speech in Gettysburg, Pa., outlining what his priorities would be if elected president, the Republican nominee warned that the anticipated merger of the two media giants would give the surviving AT&T “too much concentration of power. …We’ll look at breaking this deal up.”

AT&T has reached an agreement in principle to buy Time Warner for about $85 billion, sources said on Friday, paving the way for what would be the biggest deal in the world this year, giving the telecom company control of cable TV channels HBO and CNN, film studio Warner Bros and other coveted media assets.

Time Warner shares soared more than 12% in trading Friday amid reports that the entertainment giant is in advanced talks to merge with AT&T. Time Warner shares spiked so fast that trading was briefly halted just before 11 a.m. ET for about 10 minutes. Time Warner surpassed its 52-week high and was hovering around $93 at noon ET. AT&T shares have dropped on the news, falling about 3% to around $37 in trading Friday.

Senior executives at AT&T and Time Warner have met in recent weeks to discuss various business strategies including a possible merger, according to people familiar with the matter. Time Warner rose at much as 9.5% in New York to $86.75, valuing the company at about $67.5 billion. AT&T fell 2%.

Time Warner and Viacom are among bidders circling Telefónica SA’s Argentine television broadcaster Telefe for a potential acquisition, people familiar with the discussions said. The deal could allow one of the U.S. media companies to gain a greater presence in Latin America.

Opponents of the FCC’s set-top box market reforms are putting more pressure on Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, seen as the swing vote on the hotly-contested item. In a filing on Friday, a set of programming companies disclosed that they spoke with Rosenworcel last week and said that “any arrangement in which they are required to allow their content to be distributed on terms or conditions to which programmers would not agree would be tantamount to a compulsory copyright license, which the Commission lacks authority to impose.”

As programming costs continue to bulge, big players have been forced to rethink the core building block of pay TV: the bundle. The “fat” package of channels, oft criticized for its bloated price, is giving way to streamlined options, including two alternatives last week, from Time Warner and Dish, that showed how the trend is gaining momentum.

Time Warner shares are up pre-market after it disclosed that it has joined Disney, Fox and Comcast as an equity owner of Hulu, and beat Wall Street expectations for 2Q earnings. No word on what it paid.

Ad time on A&E was down 10% during the second quarter, while AMC Networks was down 7.4%, Time Warner networks were down 5% and Viacom outlets trimmed 3%, according to Bernstein Research, in its analysis of TiVo Research & Analytics data.

Jeff Bewkes doesn’t hide his amusement when asked whether Time Warner is a takeover target. The chairman-CEO ticks off the reasons why the company is well-positioned to keep thriving in its current configuration. “We have the brands, we have the money, we have the distribution platform support, and we have the program supply. We have better access to movies and TV shows than any other company probably other than Disney.”

Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner Inc.’s chairman and chief executive, collected a compensation package valued at $31.5 million in 2015, representing a 4% decline from the previous year. Bewkes, 63, received $2 million in salary, $7.9 million in stock options, stock options valued at $8 million and a $13.4-million cash bonus in 2015, according to a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Time Warner has signed up Nielsen as a strategic partner for its Medialab. The partnership builds on Medialab’s existing neuroscience research — including biometric and eye-tracking technology, enhanced facial coding, behavioral coding and EEG technology.

The broadcast of the final game of the final game of the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament on TBS — the first cable network to air the event — could pay off for Time Warner, which has spent billions of dollars buying the rights to air NCAA, Major League Baseball and NBA games. But the company risks losing profits from sports over time if more people cut their cable cord.

Time Warner began offering HBO’s streaming video service last year, letting consumers watch Game of Thrones or comedian John Oliver over the Internet without a cable subscription. Now the entertainment programmer wants to make sure online video competition isn’t squelched if its former cable unit is purchased by Charter Communications.

The gains in the standalone online service in the eight months since its launch last year didn’t seem to wow investors. Stifel analyst Benjamin Mogil said the 3.2% gain in HBO subscriber revenue came below the 4.7% Wall Street expected.

Hedge fund managers are driving themselves crazy trying to make sense of the numerous theories about who’s moving which pieces across the media chessboard. This week’s consensus is that AT&T is preparing to make a major media buy. Several well-placed tipsters believe the former Ma Bell is circling Time Warner.

It’s not just activist shareholders who want to see big changes at Time Warner. Two of the New York media giant’s largest longtime investors are also running out of patience and would support a sale of all or parts of the company.

Time Warner and its chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, have agreed to extend the term of his employment agreement another three years through 2020, the media corporation announced Thursday.

The legal chaos that imperils the daily fantasy sports (DFS) industry now officially threatens the professional sports leagues, media companies and financial institutions that have become partners with the two leading DFS companies, DraftKings and FanDuel. Two Florida-based DFS customers e-filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against approximately 50 companies and individuals that have either invested in DFS companies or facilitated DFS gaming. Among those named are Turner Sports, Time Warner, NBC Sports Comcast Ventures, 21st Century Fox and Fox Sports Interactive Media.

Fast-growing online streaming service Hulu is looking to sell an ownership stake to Time Warner Inc., a move that would make Time Warner the fourth media giant in Hulu’s investor fold. The streaming service approached Time Warner about two months ago with the proposition and talks are in the preliminary stages, a person close to the situation told the Los Angeles Times.

Jeff Bewkes, the CEO of DC-owner Time Warner Inc., told analysts on a conference call Wednesday that the company is considering whether to let online services like Netflix have its shows several years after they first air, rather than one year later. He said that could mean more older episodes are available on-demand to traditional cable customers.

NBC’s $200 million investment in BuzzFeed and Vox shows the outline of a new media world that may prove life-threatening for big companies. Aside from Comcast, the media companies scrambling to escape disaster and crack the digital code include Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox empire (which comprises Fox studios, the Fox broadcast network, and the FX, National Geographic and Fox News cable channels), Time Warner (Warner Bros., CNN, HBO and the various Turner channels), and the Walt Disney Co. (Disney studios, ABC and ESPN).

Time Warner Inc. CEO Jeff Bewkes addressed the idea of eventual consolidation involving rival media companies CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc., while steering clear of any specifics. When asked about the future of Viacom and CBS and whether they could combine with Time Warner, Bewkes said “they may want to be a merger partner for somebody or maybe even for themselves.”

The network’s SVP of alternative programming, Kristen Connolly Vadas, is leaving the network as her position is being eliminated, one of several being cut at the network as part of  the ongoing layoffs at Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Entertainment, which co-owns the CW with CBS.

The about-face announced Tuesday comes three weeks after Time Warner Inc. revealed that it had rejected 21st Century Fox’s unsolicited $76 billion buyout offer.

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox is expected to make an aggressive case for merging with Time Warner Inc. during its quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, though people familiar with the company’s planssay it will not use that forum to raise its bid.

21st Century Fox is willing to give Time Warner shareholders representation on its board as part of a bid for the media giant. However, participation in the leadership of the tightly controlled conglomerate may not be enough to make much difference, according to an individual close to Time Warner.

Both Fox and Time Warner want the The 21st Century Fox chief to stay in his job a few more years to handle the transition should the merger deal go through. Investors are concerned about who might succeed 83-year-old Rupert Murdoch, and are not sure whether Murdoch’s sons, James, 41, and Lachlan, 42, are up to the challenge.

If Fox reaches a deal to sell its German and Italian pay-TV outlets, the company may use the proceeds to boost its bid to buy Time Warner. The European assets could fetch $13.5 billion, giving Rupert Murdoch more cash to up his $75 billion offer.

The $76 billion cash-and-stock bid by Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. was partly meant to counter consolidation among TV distributors like Comcast-Time Warner Cable and AT&T-DirecTV. The more must-have channels like HBO and Fox News Channel are assembled under one company, the stronger that company’s bargaining position in demanding licensing fees from the TV distributors, no matter how big they get. If talks resume and a takeover succeeds, here are some possibilities.

Media is going through a seismic change, as more and more people watch entertainment online, via Netflix, Hulu and services such as HBO Go, which Time Warner owns. Both distributors and producers of content have been struggling to adjust as the lines between TV and digital viewing blur. One way to do that is to get bigger.

21st Century Fox, the media empire run by Rupert Murdoch, made an $80 billion takeover bid in recent weeks for Time Warner but was rebuffed, say people briefed on the matter.

With media moguls gathering this week at Allen & Co.’s annual media conference in Idaho’s Sun Valley, all eyes will be on 21st Century Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch, who reportedly is looking to purchase a big content company. One of the companies at the center of this speculation? Time Warner.

The owners of Univision Communications, in their search for an exit, have held preliminary discussions in recent weeks with several media companies, including CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The asking price is said to be more than $20 billion.

Now that broadcast networks have begun to write business in TV’s annual “upfront” market, cable players are preparing to join the fray. Executives at Time Warner’s Turner suite of cable networks believe there’s an opportunity for volume gains in the 2014 upfront market, when U.S. TV networks try to sell the bulk of their ad inventory for the coming season.