AT & T didn ’ metric ton buy WarnerMedia only to compete with its traditional rivals such as Comcast and Verizon, but besides to keep pace with newer adversaries including Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google ( jointly dubbed FAANG ). Without owning the distribution pipes, a well as some high-profile contented that runs through those pipes and an ad business that runs alongside it, “ you ’ rhenium gon na have a arduous prison term competing with these guys, ” AT & T CEO Randall Stephenson said at Recode ’ s Code Conference in May. Through WarnerMedia, AT & T acquired not only to Turner ’ sulfur and HBO ’ sulfur television networks and digital properties, but besides their content and Warner Bros. ’ s film-and-TV library. And in Turner, AT & T ’ s advertising division — oversee by former WPP white house Brian Lesser — gained entree to some valuable television, digital and OTT inventory. AT & T has some big plans following its WarnerMedia acquisition, notably a streaming television serve to rival Netflix, Amazon and Apple, ampere well as an advance advertise business to compete against Google, Facebook and Amazon for big television dollars .
AT&T wants to make addressable TV advertising more than a niche business
Aside from Turner, the initiation of AT & T ’ mho advertising business is AdWorks, which sells target television receiver ads on AT & T ’ second DirecTV and U-verse pay-TV services. But addressable television receiver advertising has been beset by the percept that there ’ second not enough inventory available for advertisers. AT & T is trying to change that.
AT & T ’ s Xandr advertising business has signed deals with cable-TV providers Altice and Frontier to sell their addressable television stock alongside the inventory it already has from DirecTV and U-Verse, which will give it access to 40 percentage of the addressable television inventory available future class, according to Jason Brown, vp and head of ad sales partnerships at Xandr .
The learning of Turner ’ s networks could open up more inventory if AT & T follows Comcast-NBCUniversal ’ second example and starts selling targeted ads against more of Turner ’ s TV stock beyond the two minutes per hour that DirecTV and U-Verse are allotted .
AT&T wants to be a one-stop shop for digital video advertising
AT & T ’ s ad ambitions are not limited to addressable television or television in general. After acquiring AppNexus in August, AT & T ’ s Xandr division is looking to sell ads across a unharmed network of third-party publishers with an vehemence on digital television .
however Xandr still has work to do. The division — which has been reasonably hushed since its rebranding in September and is said to be hashing out its product roadmap — has been working to acquire more premium digital video armory, according to ad buyers who cited that as the biggest need that Xandr presently has.
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Xandr could help itself to fill that need by adding inventory from Turner ’ mho properties and commingling its addressable television receiver and digital video ad sales. Those moves — and the accession of demographic-based guarantees, another thing desired by ad buyers — could help to establish a grapevine of ad spend that may lure more publishers, particularly those looking to foster more rival against Google, Facebook and Amazon .
AT&T wants to catch the cord-cutters
AT & T ’ s DirecTV business has been losing subscribers like every other traditional pay-TV service, which is why AT & T has two streaming television services that aim to catch those customers when they cut the cord .
AT & T ’ s DirecTV nowadays had been able to stanch the bleed for a time. In the second quarter of 2018, DirecTV now added 342,000 subscribers to more than offset the 262,000 linear television subscribers lost in the menstruation. But that didn ’ triiodothyronine stay in the third quarter, when DirecTV immediately only added 49,000 subscribers, which was far brusque of the 346,000 linear television subscribers that AT & T lost in the period .
DirecTV now isn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate AT & T ’ s lone streaming television business. In June the company debuted WatchTV, a $ 15-a-month tight-fitting package of live television receiver channels. While WatchTV is primarily aimed at AT & T ’ s radio customers — it ’ sulfur free for those with outright data plans — the service is loose to anyone and works on mobile vitamin a well as connected television devices.
AT&T wants to have a portfolio of streaming video services
DirecTV now and WatchTV are far from AT & T ’ s merely attempts to cater to cord-cutters. The company has a solid portfolio of streaming video services, even after shutting down some of them .
After taking entire ownership of Otter Media in August, AT & T has anime-centric subscription streaming service Crunchyroll adenine well as Vrv, a subscription service featuring a package of on-demand channels from Otter Media companies and early companies such as AMC. AT & T besides has OTT apps for HBO and Turner ’ s cable networks. And in March, Turner-owned Bleacher Report introduced B/R Live, which streams bouncy broadcasts of sporting events, including NBA games and UEFA soccer matches .
AT & T has pared down its streaming television services by shutting down DramaFever and FilmStruck in October. But it has at least one more — a big one — on the direction with an nameless direct-to-consumer streaming merchandise that WarnerMedia plans to unveil in recently 2019. little information is known about what WarnerMedia is planning, but it ’ s likely to have multiple tiers that bundle different parts of the broad WarnerMedia ecosystem. It will besides have its own original subject, which will be oversee by Kevin Reilly, who most recently served as capitulum of Turner ’ south TNT and TBS .
