Mergers between entertainment companies seem to happen pretty regularly these days, and now we have the news of a new acquisition that will affect many streaming customers. In a press release on March 11, Discovery, Inc. announced that the shareholders for Discovery Inc. had approved proposals to acquire WarnerMedia.
The following company will be called Warner Brothers Discovery, and it will combine the holdings of both companies. Discovery already is home to such networks is the Food Network and the Discovery Channel, while WarnerMedia is the parent company for Warner Brothers, DC, DC Comics, and HBO, as well as TBS and TNT and many other properties. This will also give Discovery Inc. ownership of HBO Max.
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The cost to acquire WarnerMedia from AT&T was reportedly $43 billion.
The press release taken directly from Discovery’s corporate website reads as follows:
How Will This Impact HBO Max?
As this article was being prepared, news broke about the impact of the acquisition of WarnerMedia on the two streaming services of Discovery+ and HBO Max. MovieWeb had been prepared to lay out various scenarios on how the two streaming services would coexist. However, now we have confirmation on what Discovery Inc. is planning on doing with the two streaming services.
Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, who will also serve as the CFO officer of the combined Warner Bros Discovery, relayed the plan for the two streaming services during the Deutsche Bank 30th Annual Media, Internet & Telecom Conference.
Although no time frame has been specified for combining the two services, the fact that the services will be combined rather than remaining two separate entities means that customers will end up only having one subscription in the end. This will serve to save customers money as well as enhance their streaming offerings. More information on the combination of the two streaming services will obviously be coming in the future.
