US telecoms giant AT&T is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Time Warner, the media company whose star assets include HBO, Warner Brothers and CNN. A merger of the two firms would come as telecoms companies have shown an increasing interest in media and tech takeovers. “DirecTV and Time Warner in a lot of ways is more similar than Time Warner and AT&T. It’s not a position that creates any synergies, and it does create some dis-synergies, like the problem of managing a global media company from Texas. Traditional media companies are also facing increased competition from players including Netflix, Amazon Prime and Google’s YouTube.

Source: The Guardian October 21, 2016 15:48 UTC