AT&T sees significant opportunities for monetizing the content assets it will own when its planned acquisition of Time Warner is completed, noted AT&T CEO, Chairman and President Randall Stephenson today in a question-and-answer session at an investor conference, where he discussed AT&T Time Warner plans.
AT&T already has about 150 million to 200 million advertising impressions yearly – a number that will grow to 800 to 850 million after the acquisition, Stephenson said. And considering that AT&T monetizes ad impressions at a “higher yield than a typical media company,” that means considerable upside potential, he said.
“We’re not percentages higher but orders of magnitude higher” – in the range of two to three times higher, he noted.
The reason AT&T can command a premium is that it has “a significant amount of unique viewership data,” Stephenson explained. He noted, for example, that AT&T’s data is device- and set top box-specific.
AT&T Time Warner Plans
Stephenson also highlighted several other content monetization opportunities that could be part of AT&T Time Warner plans, including:
- Cross-promoting Time Warner intellectual property including Harry Potter, Looney Tunes and DC Comics
- Creating content for mobile devices, including shorter-form 20-minute content
- Creating ad-supported offerings from Warner Brothers’ massive content library
- “Doing things uniquely” for AT&T’s “mobile environment” that would involve Time Warner content also available to other mobile providers but not with the additional unique features – at least not initially
- Once AT&T has established unique content capabilities for its own mobile environment, potentially the company could make those capabilities available to other mobile operators as well
When AT&T last year announced its plan to acquire Time Warner, the companies said the deal was expected to close before the end of 2017.
Stephenson made his comments at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, which was also webcast.
