WarnerMedia Deal Lands Another AT&T Win For Cable Billionaire John Malone

For watchers of cable TV billionaire John Malone, today’s announcement that AT&T is bailing on its sideways attempt at becoming a media company comes as no surprise. Known as a swashbuckling dealmaker in the industry, Malone exploded into prominence in 1999 when AT&T paid $48 billion for Tele-Communications, the cable giant he built, lifting him out of cable’s engineering shadows and landing him a starring role as a content titan mentioned alongside the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller. Malone is capitalizing on AT&T’s misguided media dalliance and is poised to become a prominent shareholder and board member of a newly formed business that combines AT&T’s WarnerMedia’s collection of film, TV, sports and news assets with Discovery Inc.’s unscripted shows and global sports holdings. While the transaction is an about-face for AT&T CEO John Stankey, who vowed to create a media powerhouse out of the telecommunications giant, it marks the latest in a string of content deals for Malone, who holds 28% voting control of Discovery. Malone spoke every day with David Zaslav as the Discovery chief executive laid plans for the ambitious deal. As with many a business arrangement, this one germinated on the links. Zaslav and Stankey planned to meet at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in February. The pandemic scuttled those travel plans, and a house-bound Zaslav began texting Stankey in what “ended up in a two hour conversation about the future of media.” That led to a series of discrete meetings at Zaslav’s Greenwich Village brownstone — “an exhilarating and a truly bonding experience” — that culminated in today’s agreement.“John [Malone] sees the opportunity to make one last killing,” said one executive who has worked closely with the cable mogul. “Look, you put the two of them in front of a business chessboard, which John are you going to put your money on—Stankey or Malone?”AT&T’s investors welcomed the arrival of Malone, whose net worth Forbes estimates at $8 billion—and Zaslav, a media veteran who took Discovery public in 2008, led its acquisition of Scripps Network Interactive and will be the CEO of the combined business.  The telecom company’s stock rose 74 cents to $32.95 in late morning trading.“This new company makes huge sense,” said Zaslav in an email this morning to employees. The announcement made no mention of Warner Media CEO Jason Kilar, a tech entrepreneur who rattled the insular entertainment industry in a series of moves aimed at “breaking” entrenched business models. Kilar, perhaps sensing the shifting ground, has been increasingly visible, delivering a keynote at the MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit in New York and granting an interview to the Wall Street Journal. Now, at 80, Malone has a seat at the table with what could be one of the most formidable media companies on the planet. The $43 billion deal brings together AT&T’s Warner Bros. All data is taken from the source: http://forbes.com Article Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnchmi... #malone #newmovies #usanewstoday #newsworldwide #newsworldnow #newstodaybbc #