AT&T Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Nearly five years after signing their big multi-million dollar Netflix deal, “Game Of Thrones” creators David Benioff & D.B. Weiss are finally set to begin at the streamer in earnest with their first big project, the sci-fi mystery series, “3 Body Problem” (to be fair, they executive produced Netflix’s “The Chair” too, but that was more of Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman’s project; Peete is married to Benioff).

Randall Stephenson, the former chairman and CEO of AT&T and architect of the telecom giant’s ill-fated acquisition of Time Warner, has resigned from the policy board of the Professional Golf Association at a critical moment.

David Fortune and producer Kian Clingman competed amongst four other finalists to win $1 million and receive year-round mentorship to produce their feature film.The film concerns a devoted father learning to raise his son — who has Down Syndrome — following the passing of the family matriarch. While adjusting to their new reality, the duo embark on a journey through Metro Atlanta to attend their first baseball game.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor One of the nation’s biggest telecommunications companies is betting that college sports will keep it connected to consumers. AT&T will remain a top-tier sponsor of NCAA athletic events through the 2024-2025 academic year, having signed a deal to extend its pact with the massive college-sports league. AT&T has been an NCAA “corporate champion” since 2001, and unveils the extension just as the NCAA’s 2023 “March Madness” basketball tournament is kicking off.. “We love the audience size,” says Kellyn Kenny, chief marketing and growth officer of AT&T, in an interview, speaking of the basketball championship event. “It does a really nice job of attracting an audience that is fairly diverse — it’s young, it’s GenZ, and has a bunch of business decision makers.”

AT&T reported solid results for its final quarter of full ownership of WarnerMedia, but its stock plunged after the company lowered its outlook for full-year free cash flow.

John Oliver did not mince words for his show’s former owners.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T has quietly dropped HBO Max as a bundled perk for new customers on its highest-tier unlimited wireless plan.The telco’s move comes two months after AT&T spun off WarnerMedia and sold it to Discovery, to form Warner Bros. Discovery.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorAfter a topsy-turvy week, the thought occurred to me during AT&T’s investor call on Thursday: What if John Stankey wound up on the winning side of the streaming wars?Netflix took a nosedive on Tuesday with an earnings report that proved that it could not suspend the law of gravity forever. The steady upward climb of Netflix subscriber gains had to stop sometime, and that sometime was Q1 2022.The jolt that the news of six-figure losses in Q1 and a projected seven-figure loss for Q2 packed a wallop on Netflix stock price.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T, in its Wall Street swan song as an entertainment entity, reported solid subscriber pickup for HBO Max and HBO for the first quarter of 2022. The now-divested WarnerMedia unit was again a drag on profitability because of continued investments in HBO Max and the launch of CNN+ — reflecting a key reason AT&T spun it off.WarnerMedia is now part of Warner Bros.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterWarner Bros. Discovery and AT&T each ended the trading week with their respective shares selling at a 3% increase from where the stocks opened Monday.The newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery, born out of the $43 billion merger of Discovery, Inc.

AT&T’s stock price on Monday jumped 8%, to $19.67, as a probable result of Friday’s closure of the deal. The Warner Bros. Discovery share price dipped to $24.48 in after-hours trading, but the start and finish were close enough that the day could hardly be called a roller coaster.Monday was the first day of public trading for Warner Bros.

According to John Oliver on Last Week Tonight, One American News (OAN) has a legal bone to pick with him. Back in January 2022, DirecTV planned to drop One America News Network (OAN), the right-wing channel known for its pro-Donald Trump coverage and commentary which was picked up by DirecTV in 2017.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaAs Discovery closes its deal for WarnerMedia, John Stankey, the AT&T chief who oversaw the telecom company’s abandoned foray into the media world, bid farewell to his soon-to-be former colleagues. Stankey led AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV and Time Warner in 2015 and 2018, before replacing Randall Stephenson as CEO role of AT&T in July 2020.“My respect and appreciation for those I have worked closely with is enduring, and I will miss continuing to learn and problem solve with you,” Stankey wrote.

AT&T CEO John Stankey, who decided last spring to spin off WarnerMedia into a $43 billion merged entity with Discovery, has sent a bouquet to WarnerMedia staff as the deal gets set to close.

AT&T has firmed up more details of its spinoff of WarnerMedia, which is poised to combine with Discovery in a $43 billion merger.

AT&T’s chief executive John Stankey had a $24.8 million salary in 2021, as compared to his $21 million pay the year prior and $22.5 million earnings in 2019, per the telecommunications giant’s Securities and Exchange Commission filing made available Tuesday. While the CEO made a base salary of $2.4 million in 2021 (slightly higher than his $2.05 million in 2020), he received stock awards valued at $13.42 million. However, Stankey’s non-equity incentive plan more than doubled from $3.25 million to $6.88 million from 2020 to 2021.According to the filing, CFO Pascal Desroches received $11.7 million overall compensation in 2021, his first year in the position.

AT&T chief executive John Stankey’s compensation totaled $24.8 million last year, up from $21 million the year earlier. According to a proxy statement filed with the SEC, retired CEO Randall Stephenson made $16.3 million in 2021 (down from $29 million).

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAT&T CEO John Stankey’s pay for 2021 rose 18% over the previous year to $24.8 million, per the company’s SEC filing Tuesday.His base salary for the year was $2.4 million, with a non-equity incentive plan compensation of $6.88 million.

Discovery and AT&T have determined the 13 members of the board of directors for Warner Bros Discovery, the new company that will be created via a pending $43 billion merger.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorSamuel Di Piazza Jr. will serve as the chairman of Warner Bros.

John Stankey, who played a central role in AT&T’s push into entertainment before shedding of those money-losing assets as CEO, signaled a new day in his opening remarks at the company’s investor day.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorOn the cusp of spinning off WarnerMedia — ending AT&T’s ill-fated foray into the entertainment biz — telco chief CEO John Stankey touted the company as getting into fighting shape to succeed in its core wireless and broadband sectors.AT&T released updated financial guidance on Friday ahead of its investor day presentation, fleshing out its post-WarnerMedia strategic priorities. Separately, Discovery shareholders also Friday are set to vote on whether to approve the WarnerMedia deal.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAT&T and Discovery are expecting to close Discovery’s acquisition of WarnerMedia to create new company Warner Bros. Discovery as early as mid-April, Variety has learned.According to two people familiar with the matter, with Discovery’s shareholder vote on the deal — which has already received regulatory approval from the DOJ — set for March 11, the two companies are preparing for a close between April 11-April 28.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAT&T and State Farm are the latest big advertisers to experiment with new ways of figuring out just who is watching TV – and the commercials that support it.The two marketers are among those who are taking part in an alliance between Discovery and Omnicom Media Group. Under the pact, a handful of Omnicom clients, including the telecom and insurance giants, will test new ways of tabulating linear TV audiences using Comscore and VideoAmp, and examine recent viewership data.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAT&T and Discovery have gained clearance for their much-anticipated deal to spin off WarnerMedia so it can merge with Discovery, a deal that has already been approved in Europe. The approval of Discovery shareholders is the last barrier to the deal moving forward.The companies disclosed the matter in two different filings Wednesday with the U.S.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorNow in the home stretch of unloading WarnerMedia, AT&T chief John Stankey appears to be primarily interested in not destroying any more value for shareholders than the telco giant already has with its ill-fated M&A strategy.This week, AT&T announced that the WarnerMedia divestiture will be structured as a spinoff ahead of its combo with Discovery. That will give telco shareholders pro-rata shares in the newly created Warner Bros.

Shares in both AT&T and Discovery opened down about 5% apiece on Tuesday morning, following news that AT&T would indeed, definitely spinoff WarnerMedia in a $43 billion deal with Discovery, Inc.There was previously a chance the two companies would execute a split instead.In addition to that decision, AT&T’s board of directors has approved an annual dividend of $1.11 per AT&T share.“In evaluating the form of distribution, we were guided by one objective — executing the transaction in the most seamless manner possible to support long-term value generation,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said this morning. “We are confident the spin-off achieves that objective because it’s simple, efficient and results in AT&T shareholders owning shares of both companies, each of which will have the ability to drive better returns in a manner consistent with their respective market opportunities.“We believe that the remaining AT&T and the new WBD are two equities that the market will want to own and the markets to support those equities will develop,” Stankey continued.

AT&T shares are down in pre-market trading after the telecom giant said it will spin off WarnerMedia as part of the entertainment unit’s pending $43 billion merger with Discovery.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T announced that its board has decided to spin off the telco’s interest in WarnerMedia — rather than structure the media conglom’s divestiture as a split-off.The transaction will spin off 100% of AT&T’s interest in WarnerMedia to AT&T’s existing shareholders in a pro-rata distribution, followed by the merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery to form a new company, “Warner Bros. Discovery.” The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022; previously, AT&T had targeted “mid-2022” for the close.Last week, on AT&T’s Q4 earnings call, CEO John Stankey had left said the board was still on the fence about whether to spin off WarnerMedia (and give AT&T shareholders pro-rata shares in the new Warner Bros.

In a conference call with Wall Street analysts, AT&T CEO John Stankey defended the decision to separate HBO Max from Amazon’s channels business.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAT&T CEO John Stankey told investors he expects HBO Max to recoup all of the subscribers lost last fall after WarnerMedia pulled HBO from the Amazon Prime Video Channels marketplace in September amid ongoing agita in the TV industry about the fees Amazon takes for facilitating sales of subscription TV services.During AT&T’s hourlong fourth-quarter earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Stankey also noted that market conditions have spurred price hikes by HBO Max rivals, which means that HBO Max is not the most expensive of the major domestic players at present. Stankey didn’t mention Netflix by name, but the inference was clear.Last October, AT&T reported that HBO and HBO Max lost about 1.8 million subscribers in the third quarter after the disengagement from Amazon in the previous month.

pull HBO from Amazon Prime Video Channels. On a Wednesday morning conference call timed to the (mostly) mobile company’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 earnings results, Stankey said the move will look even smarter after WarnerMedia spins off from AT&T and into a new company with Discovery, Inc.“We felt it was the right decision.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T topped Wall Street estimates for the fourth quarter of 2021, with WarnerMedia revenue driving top-line results helped by strong growth of HBO Max.The company also announced that the it expects the WarnerMedia spinoff and merger with Discovery to close by mid-March 2022. AT&T said it plans to host a virtual analyst event in the first half of March, following the close of the WarnerMedia transaction.WarnerMedia total revenues grew 15.4% to $9.9 billion, driven by content licensing revenues and strong direct-to-consumer subscription growth, AT&T said.

Yahoo Finance. On Wednesday, AT&T reported adjusted EPS of 78 cents on $41 billion in revenue.“A year and a half ago, we began simplifying our business to reposition AT&T for growth and we’re extremely pleased with how we’ve executed on that commitment,” said John Stankey, AT&T CEO.

Zac Efron has parterned up with AT&T and he’s starring in a new commercial for the company!

Black History Month with their 2nd annual Living Black! Empowered by AT&T celebrations. The month-long celebration is set to include a special event that will feature performances by Big Sean, H.E.R., Moneybagg Yo and Ari Lennox.