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AT & T will begin to limit certain Time Warner programs to its own streaming service, although it has previously announced to the government that it will distribute Time Warner's content as widely as possible.
WarnerMedia, the division created by AT & T when buying Time Warner, today announced a new online streaming service called "HBO Max". HBO Max will debut in the spring of 2020 and will include exclusives that will no longer be available on other streaming platforms.
HBO Max will have exclusive broadcast rights for all episodes of friends, The prince of Bel-Air, and pretty Little Liars. friends and pretty Little Liars are currently available on Netflix, so they will leave this service before launching HBO Max.
Since HBO Max exclusives are for streaming rights only, broadcasts could still be available on cable television services.
HBO Max will also have exclusive broadcast rights for future Warner Bros. series. as Batwoman and Katy Keene. AT & T also announced that HBO Max would have "exclusive film production agreements with Greg Berlanti … and Reese Witherspoon", as well as HBO programming and various "Max Original" series in preparation.
HBO Max will likely cost "a little more" than the $ 14.99 per month currently charged for HBO. Now, the Wall Street Journal writes. HBO Now is primarily a means of distributing programs produced by HBO as well as movies for which HBO has streaming rights. HBO Max will have a larger library including many more Time Warner programs. AT & T has announced that it "will be premiering with 10,000 hours of premium content."
What AT & T told the government
AT & T offers exclusive Time Warner shows to HBO Max, although it has announced to government officials that it will continue to broadcast Time Warner content as widely as possible.
In December 2016, while AT & T was asking the government for permission to buy Time Warner, AT & T's CEO, Randall Stephenson, told an antitrust sub-committee the following: Senate:
There is also no reason to believe that we could use Time Warner programming or AT & T networks to harm the associated markets. In simple terms, it would be irrational to do so. Time Warner programming is more valuable when it is distributed to as many people as possible. In addition, to have good programming, it is imperative to attract great creative talent to develop it. The best way to attract this talent is to widely disseminate the content of Time Warner.
AT & T was able to finalize the purchase of Time Warner without any conditions of merger governing the distribution of videos. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, has authorized AT & T to avoid an examination of the FCC's public interest. The Justice Department sued AT & T to block the merger, but a US District Judge ruled against the DOJ, allowing him to complete the merger in June 2018 without conditions.
The DOJ argued that AT & T could harm competing online video services by suspending Time Warner programs and movies or by increasing the prices that online services must pay to broadcast that content.
AT & T increases prices after the merger
AT & T has also been increasing DirecTV Now's ongoing prices twice since the completion of the merger, although it has told a judge before a court that the merger[e] AT & T and Time Warner will reduce consumer prices. "The latest reduction of DirecTV Now has been associated with the elimination of dozens of channels that are not part of Time Warner.
AT & T has also not kept its promise of employment related to a reduction in federal tax. AT & T said it would create 7,000 new jobs through savings from tax cuts. Instead, AT & T has cut more than 25,000 jobs.
With HBO Max, AT & T could once again benefit from the repeal of network neutrality rules by the FCC. Pai's FCC overturned a commission ruling that AT & T had violated net neutrality rules with its data-limiting exemptions (aka "zero rate"). The FCC's action in Pai has given AT & T and other operators the go-ahead to subtract their own video content at data caps and charge other video companies for the same exemptions.
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