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AT&T is in talks to sell WarnerMedia’s celebrity gossip site TMZ to Fox, Deadline confirmed, in another deal slashing the telecommunications company’s entertainment assets, which comes as it gears up to split Warner and merge it with Discovery.
The $ 43 billion deal was announced in May and may not be finalized until the middle of next year. Meanwhile, until then, businesses are required to operate separately on a business-as-usual model. For AT&T, this resulted in the sale of non-core assets to raise new liquidity. The telecommunications giant has significant debt to repay and is investing heavily in spectrum as 5G rolls out – the reason it is leaving media with the Discovery deal.
AT&T sold the Playdemic mobile game studio to Electronic Arts for $ 1.4 billion in cash in June. And yesterday, he officially closed the sale of the Crunchyroll anime business to Sony’s Funimation group. However, Playdemic was specifically excluded from the Discovery deal when it was announced. The Crunchyroll transaction was previously announced. It was not immediately clear whether TMZ was part of the Discovery deal and, if so, whether its sale could change the terms.
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TMZ’s Syndicated Gossip Show TMZ on TV aired on Fox stations. There had in fact been rumors that the fiery and at times controversial site had been on the block since 2017 after AT&T announced the deal with Time Warner.
Fox, AT&T and Warner Bros. did not comment.
The talks were first reported in The Information.
AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches on Tuesday reiterated at an investor conference that splitting WarnerMedia just three years after the purchase was a solid move to create real value for the new HBO Max.
“We realized… even though we were really successful in launching HBO Max, the market wasn’t giving us proper credit for it. And we felt that a more efficient capital structure would be to provide Warner Media with its own capital structure and equity so that investors interested in media can invest directly in Warner Media, ”he said. “So that’s a combination of what we needed to make sure we had additional investment capacity as well as to make sure our capital structure was efficient and delivered – and unlock shareholder value. . “
AT&T CEO John Stankey said late last month the company was working closely with regulators and the WarnerMedia / Discovery deal appears to be on the right track.
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