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AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson
- In order to compete with streaming giants like Amazon and Netflix, AT&T and Time Warner won their bid to merge on Tuesday.
- After the deal, AT&T will own HBO and Turner Broadcasting Systems, which includes a number of television networks, CNN, and Warner Brothers Studio.
One of the arguments AT&T's lawyers made before a judge deciding the fate of its proposed merger with Time Warner was that joining forces was the only way it could compete with the likes of Netflix and Amazon.
Due to declining television ad dollars - a result of cord-cutting and the rise of Google and Facebook, they said - merging was the only way they could survive. With AT&T's broadband infrastructure and Time Warner's production chops, a merger made sense.
The judge bought that argument, and approved the historic merger between the companies on Tuesday. As a result, AT&T will own a number of additional properties, including HBO, Warner Brothers Studio, CNN, and several other television networks.
The merger was somewhat unusual. It was a so-called vertical merger, meaning that AT&T - a content distributor - doesn't compete directly with Time Warner - a content producer. After the merger, AT&T looks more like Netflix and Amazon, who both do double duty: they both produce and distribute media on their own platforms.
Here's a graphic of the major properties AT&T will own:
Skye Gould/Business Insider
This story was originally published by bleacher report.