WarnerMedia


Warner Media, LLC was an American multinational mass media and filmed entertainment corporation. It functioned as a public company until becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. WarnerMedia's headquarters were located at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City and the company's businesses were divided into five divisions.
The company's history traces back to the Kinney National Company, which purchased several entertainment companies during the 1960s and 1970s,. By 1972, Kinney separated its non-media businesses into an independent company, and renamed itself to Warner Communications. After merging with Time Inc., the new company became Time Warner Inc. on January 10, 1990, and kept that name for 28 years. In 2001, AOL merged with Time Warner, in a deal that came to be regarded as the "worst merger in history." Following years of downsizing, Time Warner simply owned Warner Bros., Turner Broadcasting, and HBO by 2014. Despite spinning off Time Inc. that year, it kept the "Time Warner" name until 2018, when it was acquired by AT&T for $108.7 billion and renamed to WarnerMedia.
Under AT&T, WarnerMedia’s assets were consolidated under several business divisions. In May 2020, WarnerMedia launched the HBO Max streaming service. On May 17, 2021, AT&T announced that it would exit the entertainment industry by divesting ownership of WarnerMedia and merging it with Discovery, Inc., to form a new publicly traded company. This company would become Warner Bros. Discovery, and the merger would close on April 8, 2022, leaving WarnerMedia to become defunct.
Time Warner held the title of the world’s largest media conglomerate for 18 years, and its highest market cap ever was $160 billion. In 2018, the company was ranked number 130 on the Fortune 500 list. Throughout its nearly 32-year run as a company, WarnerMedia owned some of the world’s largest entertainment businesses. These companies were either sold or spun off as independent companies.

Kinney National and Warner Communications (1969–1990)

originally began as a service-based conglomerate, but after purchasing several entertainment businesses during the late 1960s, Kinney soon pivoted away from the service industry. By mid-1971, Kinney separated its non-media businesses into National Kinney Corporation and reincorporated as Warner Communications Inc. on February 10, 1972. At its reincorporation, Warner Communications served as the parent company for Warner Bros, National Periodical Publications, Warner Cable, and Kinney Record Group International.Warner’s longest-serving executive was Steven Ross.
By 1984, Steven Ross was the sole Chairman, Chief Executive, and President of Warner Communications. The company made investments into the Sports Industry through Global Soccer Inc. and formed a joint venture with American Express known as Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment. Warner-Amex would launch several cable channels, including MTV, Nickelodeon, and VH1. In May 1986, this venture was sold to the original Viacom. A noteworthy acquisition done by Warner Communications was its purchase of Atari Inc. in 1976. For several years, Warner enjoyed success with the gaming company until the sudden Video Game Crash of 1983. Suffering extensive losses, Warner divested parts of Atari along with several other companies it owned, and by the mid-1980s, WCI had rebounded in its financial performance.
Warner Communications's headquarters were at 75 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. It had 26,300 employees in 1985, and operating income of US$7.965 billion in 1986. Its main divisions were:
After several rounds of merger discussions, Time Inc. announced on March 4, 1989, that the two companies were to merge. If Warner and Time were to be successful in their merger, it would result in the world’s largest media company. In response, Paramount Communications launched a counterbid of $12.2 billion to acquire Time Inc. in a stock-swap deal to block the merger. Time rejected Paramount’s offer and requested a bigger bid of $14.9 billion. In response, Paramount filed a lawsuit in a Delaware Court to block the Time/Warner merger. The courts ruled in Time’s favor twice, leading Paramount to end both its Time Inc. bids and the lawsuit and allowing the Time Warner merger to proceed on January 10, 1990.
Legally, the merger was structured as an acquisition of Warner Communications Inc. by Time Inc., with the latter changing its name to Time Warner Inc. The lawsuit by Paramount caused the mechanism of the merger to be changed such that Time Inc. had to take on significant debt to outright purchase all Warner Communications Inc.'s outstanding shares, which would not have been necessary in the original merger mechanism.
On June 30, 1992, Time Warner transferred most of its film, television production, music and cable businesses, including the Warner Bros., HBO, and Time Warner Cable assets, into Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P., a new limited partnership with Toshiba and C. Itoh & Co. where each invested US$500 million for a 6.25% share. The deal announced in October 1991 was intended to relieve debt pressure from the Time Inc.–Warner Communications merger.
In 1993, US West joined the partnership with a US$2.5 billion investment for a 25% share. As part of the partnership, US West formed Time Warner Communications, in order to bring telephone via fiber to the masses. By 1996, TWEC was owned 74.49% by Time Warner and the remainder by US West.
US West's stake eventually passed to acquired cable company MediaOne, then to AT&T Broadband in 1999 when that company acquired MediaOne, then finally to Comcast in 2001 when that company bought the AT&T Broadband division. Comcast sold their stake in the company in 2003, relegating the name to a subdivision under Time Warner Cable.

Other operations

In 1991, HBO and Cinemax became the first premium pay services to offer multiplexing to cable customers, with companion channels supplementing the main networks. In 1993, HBO became the world's first digitally transmitted television service. In 1995, CNN introduced CNN.com which later became a leading destination for global digital news, both online and mobile. In 1996, Warner Bros. spearheaded the introduction of the DVD, which gradually replaced VHS tapes as the standard format for home video in the late 1990s and early to mid-2000s. In 1999, HBO became the first national cable television network to broadcast a high–definition version of its channel.
Time Warner Entertainment completed its purchase of Six Flags Theme Parks in 1993 after buying half of the company in 1991, saving it from financial trouble. The company was later sold to Oklahoma-based theme park operator Premier Parks under certain terms and conditions on April 1, 1998.Dick Parsons, already a director on the board since 1991, was hired as Time Warner president in 1995, although the division operational heads continued to report directly to chairman and CEO Gerald Levin.

Turner Broadcasting System acquisition

On October 10, 1996, Time Warner acquired Turner Broadcasting System, which was established by Ted Turner in 1965. The deal resulted in the company gaining a multitude of cable channels, as well as two separate film companies, New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment. Time Warner was labelled as the world's largest media company following the acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System.
The deal also allowed Warner Bros. to regain the rights to their pre-1950 film library, which by then had been owned by Turner, while Turner gained access to Warner Bros.' post-1950 library, as well as other Warner Bros.-owned properties. The Turner deal also gave Time Warner access to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 's pre-May 1986 library and the pre-1991 libraries of animation studios Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears.
The deal was legally structured such that a new Time Warner Inc. corporate entity was formed that contained the "old" Time Warner Inc., which was renamed to Time Warner Companies, Inc.; as well as Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

AOL Time Warner (2001–2003)

Formation

In January 2000, America Online stated its intentions to purchase Time Warner for $183 billion. Due to the larger market capitalization of AOL, their shareholders would own 55% of the new company while Time Warner shareholders owned only 45%, so in actual practice AOL had merged with Time Warner, even though Time Warner had far more assets and revenues. Time Warner had been looking for a way to embrace the digital revolution, while AOL wanted to anchor its stock price with more tangible assets.
The deal, officially filed on February 11, 2000, employed a merger structure in which each original company merged into a newly created entity. The Federal Trade Commission cleared the deal on December 14, 2000, and gave final approval on January 11, 2001; the company completed the merger later that day. The deal was approved on the same day by the Federal Communications Commission, and had already been cleared by the European Commission on October 11, 2000.
AOL Time Warner Inc., as the company was then called, was supposed to be a merger of equals with top executives from both sides. Gerald Levin, who had served as chairman and CEO of Time Warner Entertainment, was CEO of the new company. AOL co-founder Steve Case served as executive chairman of the board of directors, Robert W. Pittman and Dick Parsons served as co-chief operating officers, and J. Michael Kelly became the chief financial officer.
According to AOL president and COO Bob Pittman, the slow-moving Time Warner Entertainment would now take off at Internet speed, accelerated by AOL: "All you need to do is put a catalyst to , and in a short period, you can alter the growth rate. The growth rate will be like an Internet company." The vision for Time Warner's future seemed clear and straightforward; by tapping into AOL, Time Warner would reach deep into the homes of tens of millions of new customers. AOL would use Time Warner's high-speed cable lines to deliver to its subscribers Time Warner's branded magazines, books, music, and movies. This would have created 130 million subscription relationships.