Thread by @bopinion

In 2007, “the guy in the black turtleneck” from Apple persuaded Randall Stephenson to form an exclusive partnership to distribute and support a newfangled product: the iPhone.

Fast-forward 12 years and Stephenson is once again making a bold bet: Hollywood bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn

Stephenson's first job was to hang 19-inch magnetic tapes onto tape drives.

👑 Today, the AT&T CEO sits atop a telecom and entertainment behemoth that controls a wireless operation; HBO, CNN and TBS; the Warner Bros. film studio; DirecTV; and more bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn

In 2013, nearly all of AT&T’s sales were tied to phones and data services. Now, almost half its revenue comes from elsewhere:

💸 Pay-TV subscriptions
⏯️ Advertising
🎞️ The box office
💻 Streaming
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Rattle off the names of the leading entertainment companies and you might start with Disney, maybe Netflix, but probably not AT&T.

To most, it’s a wireless brand — boring. The reality is something else bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn

Over the past five years, two executives who have worked in the phone industry their entire careers — Stephenson and John Stankey — became media moguls bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn

Today’s AT&T owns a confusing mix of pay-TV service names:

📺 DirecTV
📺 AT&T TV Now
📺 AT&T Watch TV
📺 HBO Go
📺 HBO Now
📺 HBO Max

By comparison, Disney is entering the streaming wars with a clear strategy, each step part of a meticulous plan bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn

Despite AT&T’s monumental makeover, its stock price is almost exactly where it was when Stephenson took the helm in mid-2007 bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn

The acid test is HBO Max, AT&T’s newest weapon in the streaming wars.

💵 At $15 a month, it’s the same price as regular HBO but with much more content — making it something AT&T hopes might be a Netflix killer bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn

AT&T is pushing HBO to ramp up its output because a sensation like “Game of Thrones” every 10 years isn’t enough to satisfy viewers.

Next year it'll have 38 new and returning original series, in addition to 31 other originals made exclusively for HBO Max bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn

Apple, with its iPhones in so many pockets, and Disney, with its parks, cruises and credit cards, have deep customer ties.

That's why AT&T had to go on the offensive. If all goes according to plan, an old-fashioned telecom might win the streaming wars bloom.bg/33Gl5Fn