AT&T Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

out of John Oliver’s book and blamed parent company AT&T.“We were a hit for that network. We were the second biggest show that network had, depending how you crunch the numbers,” Conover said on Tuesday in a TikTok video.

AT&T’s beaten-down stock has risen 4% today to reach a three-month high on strong subscriber numbers and auspicious signs for the pending WarnerMedia-Discovery deal.

A surge in demand for content, big companies shedding non-core assets and consolidation in digital media led to a massive rebound in entertainment M&A in 2021, ushered in by two landmark combinations in April and ending with an drumbeat of deals in December.

television series Mr. Mercedes (the “Series”).”The union is bringing forth the complaint “to ensure that AT&T does not gain by its callous gamesmanship, through compelling completion of the arbitration or, in the alternative, obtaining payment of the outstanding Residuals due to the Performers.”“Mr.

Accusing AT&T of “callous gamesmanship,” SAG-AFTRA has filed suit against the giant media and telecommunications conglomerate in a dispute over nearly $5 million in residuals and other compensation allegedly owed to actors who appeared on Mr. Mercedes, the TV series based on the Stephen King novel that starred Brendan Gleeson and Harry Treadaway.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T will sell Xandr, its programmatic advertising marketplace, to Microsoft, the telco announced.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed; the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory reviews.

AT&T Tuesday said it’s agreed to sell its global programmatic advertising marketplace, Xandr Microsoft. 

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorJohn Stankey, CEO of AT&T, said an effort by Democratic leaders in Congress to characterize the proposed merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery as an anticompetitive threat to the media industry was “unfounded.”“What is articulated in those letters is really unfounded,” said Stankey, speaking Monday at UBS’s Global TMT Conference, referring to a communication from several Democratic senators and representatives to the Justice Department urging scrutiny of the

R.F. Terry AT&T’s integrated media platform, Dream in Black, launched in 2018 at the American Black Film Festival (ABFF).

$85.4 billion mega-deal, one that is about to be unraveled by the pending Discovery-WarnerMedia merger, Bewkes told author James Andrew Miller.In “Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers,” Bewkes says he was assured that following their 2018 merger, AT&T brass “would basically leave our people alone.”That did not happen, he said, according to a Wall Street Journal story on the book, which is not yet available.“We didn’t think they would go to such a level of malpractice as to not

AT&T CEO John Stankey said the approval process for a deal to shed WarnerMedia and merge it with Discovery “is consistent with what we would have expected as we walked into it.”

Yahoo Finance. AT&T reported adjusted EPS of 87 cents on $39.9 billion in revenue.HBO and HBO Max combined for 45.2 million domestic subs and 69.4 million global subs at the end of Q3.

AT&T’s third-quarter results topped Wall Street estimates despite an expected loss of HBO Max subscribers in the U.S. due to a shift away from Amazon Channels.

his criticisms of AT&T this week -- his HBO show's own parent company -- after the recent report that the far-right One America News Network is primarily funded by the telecom giant. On Wednesday, Reuters reporters that OANN — which routinely broadcasts conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and the 2020 election to its conservative audience — was actually an idea from AT&T executives, who, according to testimony reviewed by Reuters, asked now-CEO Robert Herring Sr.

One America News, the upstart far-right media outlet best known for doggedly backing Donald Trump before, during and after his presidency, got about 90% of its funding from AT&T.

Reuters, asked now-CEO Robert Herring Sr. to make a conservative network to compete with Fox News in 2013.

AT&T CEO John Stankey sees a period of “less uncertainty” ahead for the telecom giant as Covid-19 gradually eases and the spinoff of WarnerMedia is completed.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T CEO John Stankey said the decision to spin off WarnerMedia — and merge it with Discovery — came down to his belief that investors have undervalued the media division under the telco’s ownership.About WarnerMedia, he said, “It’s trading right now like a cable network asset,” speaking Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorPocket.watch, the kids and family media company centered on creating franchises around YouTube stars, hired seasoned industry exec Xavier Kochhar as its first COO and CFO.Kochhar, who starts at Pocket.watch on Thursday, most recently was at AT&T in a corporate strategy and development role and prior to that headed strategy and biz dev for WarnerMedia’s HBO Max.

HBO’s John Oliver went after AT&T, his network’s parent company, on Sunday, lambasting HBO’s “business daddy” for staying silent on the anti-abortion law in Texas.

John Oliver – back on air after a two-week hiatus and in studio for the first time since Covid – started in by bashing AT&T for contributions to legislators who supported the harsh new Texas abortion law.

AT&T is in talks to sell WarnerMedia’s celebrity gossip site TMZ to Fox, Deadline has confirmed, in yet another deal paring down the telco’s entertainment assets, one that comes as it prepares to spin off Warner and merge it with Discovery.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAT&T has officially divested Crunchyroll, closing the sale of the anime business to Sony’s Funimation group — bringing together two erstwhile competitors under the Sony umbrella.The telco, looking for every opportunity to pay down its debt, sold Crunchyroll for $1.175 billion in cash paid at closing to Funimation Global Group, a joint venture between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) subsidiary Aniplex.Sony’s goal is to “create a

Sony Pictures Entertainment has closed its $1.175 billion acquisition of Crunchyroll from AT&T, adding to the list of entertainment assets recently shed by the telecom giant.

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.