I think Stankey has started preparing the field to blame everybody but himself for what's been happening with the company (lowest share price since March, for example.) I think the whole "tech giants hold too much power over streaming" is just the opening salvo. We're soon to find out who or what is guilty for every bad move the self-proclaimed genius has made since he took over. Because it could never be his fault. Never. He's too smart for that. Right?
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The man in the White House is the reason T has been able to renovate T owned real estate and build out new call centers, thus, hiring U.S. people to work there as T employees! Granted, there are layoffs in other areas of the business, but that’s on senior mis-management!
Stank was Head of Strat when T overpaid for DTV (1+1=3) . He was there when T Mobile when down the tubes (-$4b) . The serial acquirer also was all in on the TW price tag.
I cant believe they were not sent packing years ago
Stankey and Randall will walk out the door with hundreds of millions!!
What is funny (or not even at all funny), is even now he can reach agreements with Roku and Amazon, and the HBO Max thing can make us some money. Yet, he still has this pipe dream of being next Google or Amazon of advertising. The sooner the id–t Stankey is removed from the helm the better. The worst management duo (Randall and Stankey) that could possibly be had. Put McFresh in his position or someone from outside. id–t does not understand anything about telecomm or entertainment and TV.
"I really believe when AT&T got into streaming, they expected to be the 800 pound gorilla and the room and push everyone else around."
This is exactly it. They thought they'd buy a bunch of satellite customers, throw up HBO content and TW's back catalog and sprinkle in some data-mining-advertising & just print money.
Nobody considered how it'd compete against itself with multiple versions of HBO or how they'd need a deal to get the service on various platforms or how they'd have to support the satellite business.
Now every other area of the business is suffering because they have to throw so much money keeping the media albatross flying. It's a death spiral I'm not sure how they pull out of with Tmob and VZ cobbering them on the mobility front and literally every other streaming platform pulling away from theirs.
I really believe when AT&T got into streaming, they expected to be the 800 pound gorilla and the room and push everyone else around. Maybe if Game of Thrones were still on, HBO would be a "must carry" and T would be able to make it's own demands, but with GoT gone, HBO is just another late to market streamer in a sea of streamers. It doesn't have what Netflix has (first to market / everybody has it) or what Disney has (anyone with a kid or who was a kid wants it). The fumbling is made worse by the plethora of confusing offerings - HBO, HBO GO, HBO NOW, HBO Max - it's hard enough for an employee to keep track, let alone a consumer. It's so confusing that the bulk of the people who have HBO through their TV service aren't even signing up for HBO Max which is free because they a) don't know they have it b) don't know it's different than the HBO they already pay for and c) AT&T's inability to get Max on Roku/Fire make it impossible for all but techies who side load or cast.
- so here we are - with the former 800 pound telecom gorilla crying about not having any power.
They removed Randall and replaced him with his right hand man - what did you expect. Re-read the Elliott Letter.
Of course, his bellyaching about "tech giants" is him trying to excuse his failure. How many "tech giants" run their own fiber, wireless, media, television, and streaming networks? Comcast and, uh, that other one, forget who it is. And you never hear the CEO of Comcast crying about how mean the marketplace is to his company.
Notice how after Stanky did his big talk the other day, the needle on the shares didn't move one bit. Investors are done buying into his BS.