ADiscovery has officially completed its $43 billion acquisition of WarnerMedia and its assets from AT&T nearly a full year after the merger was announced. This will result in Discovery spinning off to form a new company, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), which will feature a new leadership structure to merge the assets of both entities.
As it stands, WBD executives have confirmed previously discussed plans to combine HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single entertainment streaming service, headed by former Discovery Streaming president and CEO JB Perrette. Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav will continue to head the company as a whole.
Through this deal, WBD now owns WarnerMedia assets related to HBO, HBO Max, CNN, Warner Bros., TBS, TNT, TruTV, Turner Sports, Cartoon Network, DC Comics, and Rooster Teeth, along with other brands via Variety. Discovery brings Discovery+, Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, the Travel Channel, Animal Planet, and more into WBD.
In total, WBD now holds 19 cable network channels at the end of this deal, along with other assets in streaming and digital entertainment. The new company will also reportedly assume partial ownership over the CW Network alongside Paramount Global.
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad, who also heads Warner Bros. Games, will report to Perrette under the WBD Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment division, which will deal with the company’s gaming initiatives.
The exact specifics of what studios and gaming assets will be included within the merger were not listed. Previously, it was reported that only a portion of WB Interactive would be included, although Monolith Productions, NetherRealm Studios, TT Games, Rocksteady Studios, and Avalanche Software, along with properties like Mortal Kombat, are almost assuredly involved.
As for AT&T, this concludes a long process of selling off assets to offset the company’s over $156.2 billion debt total that it had accumulated by the end of 2021 through various deals, including the $108.7 billion deal to merge with Time Warner in 2018. WBD will pay out the $43 billion as agreed upon to complete the deal and take on up to, or around the same amount in additional debt, according to Variety.
