Cord-Cutters Dropping Cable Force Networks to Make Hard Choices
- Time Warner sale will pressure other operators to seek allies
- ‘We have channels that are vulnerable,’ NBC tells investors
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At the end of 2016, a big question hangs over the TV industry: What if Jeff Bewkes is right?
One of the best-positioned media giants, Bewkes’s Time Warner Inc. had it all: news and sports to attract live audiences, a foothold in new online TV services, and HBO, a profit machine and critical darling. Yet his decision to sell to AT&T Inc. this year for $85.4 billion could be a tipping point. If Time Warner’s chief executive officer doesn’t see a future for the owner of CNN and TNT as a standalone company, why should anyone else?