From AOL Time Warner to DirecTV and Dish: 20 years of media mergers

DirecTV’s Dish Network deal is the latest twist in decades of other mergers, spin-offs, and acquisitions involving the biggest telecom and media firms in the world.

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By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020. This week, DirecTV announced it intends to buy Dish, Sling TV, and the rest of EchoStar’s television business for a dollar (while also taking on all of Dish’s debt), combining almost 20 million satellite TV subscribers from two companies that have been circling one another for decades. But it’s not just DirecTV and Dish. AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, General Electric, GM, News Corp, Tumblr, and the various incarnations of Time Warner have also gotten mixed up or split up while trying to bridge the gap between communications and media over the years. Here’s a partial timeline of the events that might end with these two companies joining together at last. At the turn of the 21st century, it was obvious that the internet was the future. Instant communication between anyone in the world and the idea of digital distribution was irresistible, and AOL seemed on top of the world. What better way for Time Warner to get in on the ground floor than to join forces with the company that rode to the top, one 60-hours-of-free-internet CD at a time? By 2009, it was all over. Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T’s acquisitions were an attempt to take over the media landscape built on their networks, with varying degrees of success, delivering brands like Oath, WarnerMedia, and Peacock as well as the entirely forgettable Go90. Over the next few years, AT&T executives float bad ideas for Game of Thrones, like shooting “snackable” vertical video versions. The company eventually introduced HBO Max before demoting HBO from its streaming brand, renaming the service Max. You know what happened next: Netflix never looked back on its path to 270 million global subscribers, and Disney reintroduced the bundle for streaming. At the same time, both Quibi and CNN Plus evaporated too quickly to make an impact. Ultimately, Verizon sold what was left of Oath to Apollo Global Management, and then AT&T shipped WarnerMedia off into a partnership with Discovery. Now, AT&T is selling all of DirecTV to TPG. That’s the private equity firm behind this new $1 attempt to merge with Dish Network again, while EchoStar can continue on its quest to build a nationwide Open RAN 5G network. We’ll see everyone back here in another 20 years to find out how it all worked out, okay? Disclosure: Comcast is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company. / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we’ve tested sent to your inbox weekly. The Verge is a vox media network © 2024 Vox Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved

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