Interviews with more than 24 people involved in the AT&T/Time Warner merger, including Jeff Bewkes and Randall Stephenson, detail how it went disastrously awry
At Time Warner, executives saw AT&T as just a “big phone company from Texas.” At AT&T, they thought Hollywood would play by their rules. Tweets: @jamesstewartnyt , @nytimes , @dandrezner , @nickconfessore , @chrislhayes , @benedictevans , @mattyglesias , @modestproposal1 , @reckless , @reckless , @johngapper , @film_girl , @freddiecampion , @joepeyronnin , @eddyelfenbein , @keitholbermann , @brianstelter , @derfbackderf , @edmundlee , @joshkraushaar , @sherman4949 , @backlon , @maxkennerly , @cnschedules , @semaforben , @benmullin , @jbflint , @mattzeitlin , @hondawang , @goldietaylor , @loudmouthjulia , @jbflint , @nytblake , @hudkips , @stevenoverly , @williamturton , @norootcause , @edmundlee , @oliverdarcy , @dandrezner , @mattgreenfield , @lucas_shaw , @padreinatlanta , @davidenrich , and @the_moviebob Tweets: James B. Stewart / @jamesstewartnyt : How does anyone blow through $100 billion? Try marrying a giant telecom company and a legendary Hollywood studio and watch the sparks fly. Inside the disastrous AT&T and Time warner megadeal: https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimes : AT&T's $100 billion acquisition of Time Warner is hardly the first deal to have gone disastrously awry. But few mergers have stirred up such seething resentments and finger-pointing. It was a strategic miscalculation unrivaled in recent corporate history. https://www.nytimes.com/... Daniel W. Drezner / @dandrezner : I know this lede is supposed to be a dunk on the CEO but tbh this guy is my new hero. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Nick Confessore / @nickconfessore : I'm gonna make something like this and hand it out to everyone at work. Should go over well. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Chris Hayes / @chrislhayes : Another one of those: :"Oh it was exactly what it looked like!" stories of scandal and corruption from Trump's four-year tenure. Like the audits of Comey and McCabe. https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : ‘Content is king’ if, like Netflix, Disney or HBO, you are in the content business. If you are not in the content business, as Apple or AT&T are not, then buying content has no strategic leverage. Content is only king for content companies. https://www.nytimes.com/... Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : Trump's efforts to abuse the regulatory process to dictate CNN coverage are a badly underrated free speech issue relative to the stuff you mostly hear complaints about from left and right. https://twitter.com/... @modestproposal1 : Oooh boy there's a lot going on in this story. More than anything though, Stephenson, Stankey and AT&T are who we thought they were. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://www.nytimes.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : To be clear: I told you so https://twitter.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : Again, a workable antitrust policy in the United States would be banning AT&T from buying anything) John Gapper / @johngapper : Tell us what you really think, Jeff Bewkes (from @JamesStewartNYT's great piece on the Time Warner takeover) https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @film_girl : THIS is the article I've been waiting years for: Was This $100 Billion Deal the Worst Merger Ever? https://www.nytimes.com/... Fred / @freddiecampion : I had a 3-month-old baby when I got laid off in the fallout from all this. Fun times. Love too live in an economic system where there is this much money sloshing around at the top and this is what people choose to do with it. https://www.nytimes.com/... Joe Peyronnin / @joepeyronnin : By The Times's calculation, between the Time Warner and DirecTV deals AT&T has squandered close to $100 billion. https://www.nytimes.com/... Eddy Elfenbein / @eddyelfenbein : Was This $100 Billion Deal the Worst Merger Ever? https://www.nytimes.com/... Keith Olbermann / @keitholbermann : If you'd like to know why, ultimately, @cnn has crashed and is in the hands of right wing nutjobs and Paste Eaters™️ just read this. It's also a reminder that 9 out of 10 corporate execs are moronic frauds. And the 10th is Jeff Zucker: https://www.nytimes.com/... Brian Stelter / @brianstelter : Few corporate mergers “have stirred up the passions, seething resentments and finger-pointing as AT&T's short-lived ownership of Time Warner did.” @JamesStewartNYT has pages and pages of new reporting here https://www.nytimes.com/... Derf Backderf / @derfbackderf : Long piece on the palace intrigue during the disastrous AT&T purchase and mismanagement of Warner Bros. It's all about tv and film, of course, but what's left untold is this will go down as one of the most destructive biz deals in comics history. https://www.nytimes.com/... Edmund Lee / @edmundlee : A phone company bought a media company and $100 billion vanished. @JamesStewartNYT's big heave on what AT&T did to Time Warner. Read every word: https://www.nytimes.com/... Josh Kraushaar / @joshkraushaar : “It was pretty much the strategy that Mr. Bewkes had advocated during his appearance before AT&T's board, except that four years and billions in market capitalization had disappeared in the interim.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Alex Sherman / @sherman4949 : The beginning anecdote of this is **chef's kiss**. Well done @JamesStewartNYT https://www.nytimes.com/... Dieter Bohn / @backlon : The opening scene here is dramatic and encapsulates a dysfunctional culture clash I will give you that. But also... most of these are very good takes on meetings, slide decks, and work/life balance - so I have some unexpected and mixed emotions https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Max Kennerly / @maxkennerly : Ahem. To reiterate: finance people and rich people in general are very bad at allocating capital to anything but themselves. The more our economy gets swallowed up by the top 0.1%, the worse it will perform, as has been going on since around 1980. https://www.nytimes.com/... @cnschedules : A great read from The New York Times about the many, many, many, many, many problems with the Time Warner / AT&T merger, including contributions from the two CEOs who got the merger done in the first place. https://www.nytimes.com/... Ben Smith / @semaforben : An incredible @JamesStewartNYT story confirming that everyone anyone suspected was happening was, in fact, happening in the most literal way possible https://www.nytimes.com/... Ben Mullin / @benmullin : The moment AT&T tried to fire Jeff Zucker, in this incredible @JamesStewartNYT deep-dive into the mess at WarnerMedia https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Joe Flint / @jbflint : Of course everyone at Time Warner knew what would happen to the company in this deal so the shock and outrage among senior leadership rings hollow to me. It was the worker bees who really got jammed up in this. But still good for the shareholders right? https://www.nytimes.com/... Matthew Zeitlin / @mattzeitlin : media executives love drama! https://www.nytimes.com/... @hondawang : I don't know what normal person will read this palace intrigue piece about AT&T and Time Warner—but it has niche appeal to me because I did HBO strategy work and left right before the merger. https://www.nytimes.com/... @goldietaylor : Mergers and WH discussions prolly ain't something you want talk about on these open airwaves, my dude. https://twitter.com/... Julia Alexander / @loudmouthjulia : The speed at which I gobbled up every line of this story on last several years of Time Warner/WarnerMedia/WBD. “But for sheer strategic miscalculation and poor execution, AT&T's management of Warner Media may have no rival in recent corporate history.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Joe Flint / @jbflint : If you want to protect your cookies don't ask Cookie Monster to guard them. https://www.nytimes.com/... Blake Hounshell / @nytblake : Jeff Bewkes comes awfully close to suggesting in this story that AT&T agreed to fire Jeff Zucker if Trump relented on the Time Warner merger (AT&T denying, though) https://www.nytimes.com/... Amy Hudkins / @hudkips : a long but fascinating read about the biggest mess in Hollywood that's affected so many of us working in animation https://twitter.com/... Steven Overly / @stevenoverly : Having covered the political meddling in this deal, the legal fight to halt the merger and the companies' herculean efforts to push it through, it's quite remarkable to see it all crumble so spectacularly. Great read from @JamesStewartNYT. https://twitter.com/... William Turton / @williamturton : guys being dudes https://www.nytimes.com/... Lorin Hochstein / @norootcause : The tone of this article implies that Stankey's “dictates” were unreasonable but they all sound like good things to me. Evenings and Saturdays are family time. Short, focused meetings. Shared docs should be digital. All these are good things! https://twitter.com/... Edmund Lee / @edmundlee : Remarkably, people are on the record: AT&T's Randall Stephenson (former ceo) and Larry Solomon (the exec who went to NY to tell alert them they would fire Zucker), deny this happened. Time Warner ceo Jeff Bewkes and exec Gary Ginsberg say otherwise. https://twitter.com/... Oliver Darcy / @oliverdarcy : Quite the story here. https://twitter.com/... Daniel W. Drezner / @dandrezner : This seems pretty bad! https://twitter.com/... Matthew Greenfield / @mattgreenfield : 1. This is some of the best business reporting I have ever read. 2. John Stankey appears to be one of the laziest, most incompetent CEOs ever to run a Fortune 500 company. A real talent repellent. https://www.nytimes.com/... Lucas Shaw / @lucas_shaw : The former CEOs of Time Warner and AT&T criticize the execution of their own deal (and their successors). Masterful from @JamesStewartNYT https://www.nytimes.com/... Fr. Bruce Wilkinson / @padreinatlanta : Whenever I hear that government should be run like a business instead of a service, I'm reminded of all the businesses that have shown us that people with MBAs are as dangerous as a teenager just getting a driver's license. Bad business decisions 5.0 and squared squared. https://twitter.com/... David Enrich / @davidenrich : Looking for a really amazing yarn to read on this lovely Saturday? Look no further. @JamesStewartNYT @rachel_dry https://www.nytimes.com/... @the_moviebob : Blistering coverage of entire AT&T/Warner/Discovery disaster over the last decade - read the whole thing. But “fandom media,” take note of what BARELY rates a mention: DCEU? Snydercut? Hamada-conspiracism? Non-issues. Footnotes. Hardly mattered IRL. https://www.nytimes.com/...