AT&T Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

AT&T completed its acquisition of DirecTV. Moving forward, the standalone DirecTV will include its satellite service, AT&T TV — which will be rebranded as DirecTV Stream — and U-Verse TV.

AT&T has completed the spinoff of DirecTV into a new entity part-owned by private equity firm TPG, capping a costly six-year adventure in the satellite TV business.

The FCC Wednesday announced fines totaling $9 million on 17 stations – or eight licensees – affiliated with Sinclair Broadcast Group for not negotiating retransmission consent agreement with AT&T in good faith.

AT&T CEO John Stankey said the company is working closely with regulators on the WarnerMedia-Discovery deal announced in late May and so far hasn’t seen anything “that’s been particularly problematic” in the review process.

HBO and HBO Max added 2.8 million subscribers in the second quarter, reaching 47 million in the U.S. and helping parent AT&T handily beat Wall Street forecasts.

Yahoo Finance. AT&T actually reported adjusted EPS of 89 cents on $44 billion in revenue.That adjusted earnings number was up 7.2% and revenue up 7.6% from the second quarter of 2020, when COVID-19 had a greater impact on business.HBO and HBO Max added a combined 2.8 million subscribers in Q2, bringing the U.S.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T says HBO Max is firing on all cylinders — amid fierce competition in the streaming wars — and the telco raised its expectations for HBO/HBO Max subscriber growth by the end of 2021.For the second quarter of 2021, the company reported a net gain of 2.8 million total domestic HBO Max and HBO subscribers, for a total of 47.0 million at the end of the period. That’s a gain of 10.7 million over past year in the U.S..

AT&T has sold 100% of Vrio Corp. business in Latin America to Grupo Werthhein.

Dish Network and AT&T are joining forces, though not, as some have predicted, in the pay-TV space.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDirecTV, which AT&T is in the midst of spinning off, continues to bleed subscribers — although according to the company, the loss in the second quarter of 2021 wasn’t quite as bad as it has been in recent quarters.AT&T revealed the subscriber numbers for its pay-TV video business in an SEC filing Friday related to new debt financing.

Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Alba teamed up for an event in New York City this week!

AT&T continued to tout its investments in 5G technology, convening a full-day event at the WarnerMedia Innovation Lab in New York, announcing new partnerships along with panels and demos.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T elected Luis Ubiñas, a former senior partner at international consulting firm McKinsey & Co., to its board of directors.With Ubiñas’s appointment, the number of directors on AT&T’s board increases to 13. He will serve on the board’s public policy and corporate reputation committee.Ubiñas, 58, most recently served as president of the Ford Foundation and as an appointee to both the U.S.

WarnerMedia parent AT&T has elected Luis Ubiñas to its board of directors, effective immediately.

AT&T and WarnerMedia are selling Playdemic, the mobile games studio behind Golf Clash, to Electronic Arts for $1.4 billion in cash.

One by one titans of media are delicately weighing on deals last month that will reshape the landscape with Comcast CEO Brian Roberts saying AT&T’s move to unload WarnerMedia “speaks for itself.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T CEO John Stankey positioned the proposed merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery as letting the companies — and their investors — better tap into the global direct-to-consumer opportunity, by separating the media assets from the telco.“I think, realistically, HBO Max would not be where it is today without the combined strength” of WarnerMedia and AT&T, said Stankey, speaking Monday at the J.P.

WarnerMedia streaming service HBO Max “would not be where it is today” without the company being part of AT&T, John Stankey asserted, even though that won’t be the case much longer.

AT&T will pay Discovery a $1.77 billion breakup fee if it backs out of its deal to sell off its WarnerMedia segment, according to a Plan of Merger filed on Thursday.If Discovery backs out of the deal, it will owe AT&T a breakup fee of $720 million. The terms were disclosed in a filing on Thursday.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorWarner Bros. once stood as the citadel of Hollywood, a mighty fortress of moviemaking.Today, the studio is bracing for its third massive executive shake-up in as many years.

AT&T CEO John Stankey and CFO Pascal Desroches held a 45-minute WebX town hall for WarnerMedia employees this morning, offering additional information about the entertainment unit’s upcoming merger with Discovery.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaAT&T chief John Stankey and Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches were asked tough questions about the implications of the pending merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery during an all-hands meeting of studio employees on Tuesday.Stankey tried to placate worried staffers by assuring them that he was going to advocate on their behalf and also urged them to “stay the course” during the months it will take for the deal to close.

Warner Bros. Games is reportedly being split up due to the recently announced merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc.AT&T, the parent company of WarnerMedia, announced on Monday (May 17) that it would spin off the multimedia company and merge it with Discovery, Inc.

As the news sank in about AT&T winding down its Hollywood foray via a $43 billion merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, one word summed up the film industry’s prevailing reaction.

NEW YORK -- AT&T said Monday it will combine its massive WarnerMedia media assets, which includes HBO and CNN, with Discovery Inc. to create a new media heavyweight in a $43 billion deal.The deal, which isn't slated to close until next year, will create new publicly traded company that will enter a streaming arena that has been flooded in the past two years with new players including those owned by AT&T and Discovery, which operate HBO Max and Discovery+, respectively.

Discovery chief David Zaslav, whose sizable corner of the media business is getting a lot bigger, said he had previously looked at the idea of creating a “global HBO,” but all the best series were taken.

Makan Delrahim, who as the Justice Department’s antitrust chief during Donald Trump’s administration challenged AT&T’s combination with Time Warner, has a different view of the planned spinoff of WarnerMedia.

Manori Ravindran International EditorIf AT&T and Discovery’s shock announcement underlines any learnings in recent years, it’s that legacy media is fighting back.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaIn the wake of a mega-deal with Discovery that seems primed to shake up the media landscape, AT&T chief John Stankey and WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar urged employees to stay focused on their jobs while they wait for the pact to close.“During this period, our direction and mission remain the same,” Stankey wrote in a staff-wide memo obtained by Variety.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorShares of Discovery and AT&T moved in different directions in the wake of the proposed merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery.Discovery shares opened up 10% Monday — before the stock tumbled into negative territory. The stock was down 0.3% as of 11:01 a.m.