https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-vineyard-sparked-at-t-s-deal-for-time-warner
"
Dinner at Martha’s Vineyard Sparked AT&T’s Deal for Time Warner - Bloomberg
That August dinner sparked a two-month courtship that culminated with Dallas-based AT&T agreeing to buy Time Warner for about $107.50 a share in cash and stock. Including the New York-based media company’s debt and cash, the purchase is valued at $108.7 billion, making it the biggest takeover announced in 2016. If the deal goes through, AT&T will own a prized cache of movies and TV shows it can deliver to millions of pay-TV homes, mobile phones and internet customers. "
Here's my 2c take on this deal:
I am pondering the reason why AT&T a telecommunications giant is acquiring Time Warner ( a content provider Giant )??
Here is my theory..I believe the answer lies in AT&T's ARPU ( Average Revenue Per User) figures have dropped based on call plans which in previous years was what the executives bonuses were tied to. However they saw the trend change and the world was becoming more data dependent yet they were not in a position to move. GG of SYT knew all the executives of AT&T and they all agreed that sponsored data was the future however they were more bonus conscious at the time.
We also know that tv rule the airwaves for many decades with TV ads costing the advertisers millions for a slot on a popular TV show. However the only constant thing in life is "change".
We also know that consumers have moved away from watching TV & to spending more time on the internet so entered google, youtube, Yahoo & many other search engines to try and capture the moving traffic ( eyeballs ) from the TV to the internet. With the growth of search engine marketing came hoards of advertisers with deep pockets.
The advertisers follow the consumers eyeballs and moved over to Social media advertising/marketing when Facebook grew in users as rapidly as they did.
However another trend was taking place, that was the world was going mobile as our brick mobile phones became powerful smart pc phones capable of more than just making calls and text but consuming data ie picture, music, games, movies & videos.
So content providers emerged and turned over billions in revenue.
However there was a major hurdle and that was affordability to access this content....especially for heavy data dependent content in both develop countries but especially for the 3rd world countries.
The founders of SYT have seen the wave in the horizon building momentum and have been paddling over the last few years with a great investment of time, money and energy to develop the patented technology and agreements to get into position to catch this new wave of sponsored data.
So with the AT&T agreements in place and armed with Freeway by SYT technology I feel that AT&T are ready to become what TV stations were to TVs.
AT&T have both the Telco network and consumers in place and rapidly acquiring the content provider Giant ( Time Warner ) to their arsenal. AS we said the Advertisers will follow the consumers eyeballs ( traffic).
Freeway by SYT could be the missing piece or technology they needed to enable Advertisers with deep pockets such as household names like Coca Cola to sponsor the content from Time Warner for consumers to watch for FREE. Quality data ( content ) will be broadcast/streamed directly to consumers phones and paid for by Advertisers such as Coca Cola.
AT&T will get a return from acquiring Time Warner for the quality content they produced as that content equals data consumed by consumers paid for by sponsors or advertisers to reach the end consumer. SYT being the toll keeper for the flows of data will generate a percentage as revenue for new data consumed for AT&T.
Furthermore if AT&T can be seen as one channel that consumers can tune into then other Telcos such as Verizon can be seen as being another channel for consumers to tune into also and for advertisers to reach their customers via the FREEWAY by SYT.
I don't know if this sounds confusing or maybe they are my imaginings of how things will work in this new mobile internet era, afterall Syntonic is about Reimagining the mobile internet.
