In a statement that was part of an 8-K filling AT&T said “On October 10, 2018, we announced plans to launch a new direct-to-consumer (D2C) streaming service in the fourth quarter of 2019. This is another benefit of the AT&T/Time Warner merger, and we are committed to launching a compelling and competitive product that will serve as a complement to our existing businesses and help us to expand our reach by offering a new choice for entertainment with the WarnerMedia collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation loved by consumers around the world. We expect to create such a compelling product that it will help distributors increase consumer penetration of their current packages and help us successfully reach more customers.”
What exactly AT&T plans to do is still unknown but it looks to be a new on-demand service built off of WarnerMedia’s TV shows and movies. This is not the first time this has been tried. Time Warner before the merger with AT&T tried unsuccessfully to launch a Warner streaming service full of classic Warner programming. Update: We have also learned that HBO programming will be apart of this new streaming service:
HBO will be part of, and bundled with, AT&T/WarnerMedia’s Netflix competitor. “[Customers will] see other strong brands around it.” – John Stankey #VFSummit
— The Hive (@VFHIVE) October 10, 2018
For AT&T this makes a lot of sense as they now own a huge library of movies and TV shows doing nothing. Even if their new streaming service fails to attract a huge subscriber base it costs them almost nothing to offer their back catalog streaming online. Keep an eye out for other companies to launch similar streaming services full of back catalog content currently not offered on other streaming services.
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