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Chief Financial Officer John Stephens discusses the problems at DirecTV and says that a priority is to take some savings out of WarnerMedia, now that the merger is official.
One of AT & T's priorities is to repay its debt, which has increased to $ 171 billion – or $ 40 billion less – since the acquisition of Time Warner and the change of name of the asset. One of the ways to do this is to "pull the savings out of the WarnerMedia merger," the chief financial officer of the telecommunications company said Tuesday.
Speaking at the Deutsche Bank's internet and telecom media conference, John Stephens also said he was delighted with HBO's potential on future streaming services.
"When you talk about our direct-to-consumer business and our HBO offers, you'll find that we do a lot of things throughout the company," he said. "I would expect HBO to be a really important piece … in all or almost all offers."
The executive was vague about the exclusive content on WarnerMedia's streamers that was expected to arrive by the end of the year and the amount of content available on competing platforms.
"We are in a position where we believe that streaming our content more often and on more platforms can be very beneficial for us," said Stephens. "We simply think of it as an individual decision, but we do not always jump to one answer or another."
AT & T's DirecTV asset has lost 403,000 linear subscribers in the fourth quarter and 267,000 as a result of its skinny grouped streamer DirecTV Now, but Stephens said the company was working ripping off -foot to improve its profitability, including testing its own facilities: "No more rollers of trucks … be the next step to eliminate costs."
All the hard work to increase the price of DirecTV Now and limit major discounts on traditional satellite service was done in the fourth quarter, so that the average revenue per user will increase significantly, he said.
AT & T recently reorganized WarnerMedia. Robert Greenblatt, former chairman of NBC Entertainment, is now president of entertainment assets, including HBO and upcoming streaming initiatives. Jeff Zucker is still head of CNN while adding sports; Kevin Tsujihara still leads Warner Bros. adding adults and children to his wallet; and Kevin Reilly is President of TBS, TNT, Creative Director Turner and directly to consumers.
"The alignment is really about taking advantage of all these assets," Stephens said Tuesday. "All of this aims to make the assets that are there more productive, more useful throughout the company."
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