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Post by ruben MG on Dec 8, 2018 1:05:41 GMT -5
Today was court day people. There was no decision rendered based on the testimony so we can expect that to take days to weeks basically. From what I read the general feeling is that the appeal is going to fail and AT&T will get to keep Turner however there is one glaring point that is going to be watched very closely. Two of the three judges hearing this case heard the Microsoft anti-trust case years back. For those too young or unfamiliar in that case the judges did allow Microsoft to continue forward but what the judges said in their decision is cited as having caused Microsoft major changes to their original plan forward. Something like that could happen here quite easily. In this case though given AT&T's other actions I have posted about if AT&T is given the all clear (which many think they will get) there are still going to be major rearranging of the flow chart. It seems obvious negating some of the Turner vs WB issues are going to be one of the goals AT&T will probably try to do. So like I said, for Scooby things continue to look good no matter the result here. But the result will clearly still have an impact to AT&T going forward. the only thing that worries me is that if they sell turner and cancel the application of boomerang I hope that guess who is not late in released.
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Post by mattpricetime on Dec 8, 2018 18:52:02 GMT -5
The recent thing with Filmstruck shutting down and the Criterion Channel replacing it really eliminates that possibility to me. They'd just restructure it or shut it down to only replace it with a nearly exact replacement without Turner.
Some sites are really pushing the angle that the "classic film fans" pushed and forced their hand, but I won't sugar coat when I see that as a deliberate smokescreen. If they really had canceled it just because of low subscriptions, there really would be no financial incentive to replace it with a near exact replacement. How do they expect an app with the same content and same exclusivity to somehow attract more people they didn't have before? As to why they did it with that one and not with Boomerang yet, i'd honestly say it's because the channel version of Filmstruck still had "Turner" in the name. Boomerang doesn't.
If there is a quick verdict here I expect it to be in AT&T's favor, and then we'll see them actually talk more specifically about how they will be rearranging the Turner branches going forward. Since right now some of their statements have been confusing because they basically have to tell their investors "see we've got these good plans for the future we like aren't allowed to fully tell you about yet".
On the other hand, if we get to the middle of January with no verdict yet the chances it flips the other way grows bigger the longer the wait is.
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Post by mattpricetime on Dec 10, 2018 15:51:28 GMT -5
So a rather strange related news dropped recently. While I admit this could have been in the works for months to years in advance the idea they announced it right now makes it look rather suspicious.
Apparently Turner sold the trademarks and IP of Court TV to another channel producer. TruTV used to be Court TV years ago, but now it looks like they are going to be separate channels one ran by AT&T/Turner and one by somebody else. While as I said this could have been in the works for quite a while and they are only now just announcing it, the fact it happened now when we are of course curious exactly how the Turner-based networks are going to look after the verdict is only going to add more speculation to the final picture.
Obviously though, it does look like AT&T may be willing to shuffle up where the boundary lines are for the turner channels in the future. Let alone their statuses in the general Warner Media flowchart.
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Post by Ark on Jan 13, 2019 21:18:33 GMT -5
I'd better do all my disk to digital Vudu conversions before a different company takes over and possibly removes Scooby films from that program.
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Post by monks19 on Jan 23, 2019 12:02:22 GMT -5
Any fresh news about the AT&T/Warner/Turner business ? I'm a bit concerned because most of the Turner classic catalog (as it appeared on TCM and CN) might dissapear forever (mostly ancient stuff from studios that aren't Warner properties, which includes some older & rare cartoons). Since nearly 10 years, Warner/Turner started the streaming services and Warner Archives and those are only accessible if you live in the US only (you cand always buy the discs from Amazon, but that's it). If they really wanted better business with their catalogs, they would have made sure that their services and market would be world wide available at least. For Filmstruck, their excuse that classic movie fans forced their hands is as hollow as it come while it was only available for people living in the US only. There isn't enough people interested in classic movies and cartoons (which the Hanna-Barbera collection is part of) to run this part of business unless they had a good home video release accessible.
So whatever their decision, I doubt that there's going to be any real improvements.
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Post by mattpricetime on Jan 28, 2019 20:25:57 GMT -5
I'm back and let's roll. There has been no verdict yet, which some people do consider surprising. However this Friday (February 1st) the agreement AT&T and the DOJ agreed to ends. So that means AT&T can start whatever it's long term rearranging plans are for Turner. However the catch is will they want to do so before the verdict comes in. If the verdict is in AT&T's favor, they have squat to worry about. If the verdict is in the DOJ's favor than they would probably have to undo anything they did post February 1st. I honestly expected we would have a verdict one way or another by now. I think for them to still be discussing the case means it's still a possibility it could swing either way. As far as the other comments that is one area I happen to agree that it is a shame of all the legal redtape between different countries often make it hard. Just as for the record, i'm one of those "want as many things available to as many people as possible" kind of people. But as for here I can only post what I see and hope for the best. But if people happen to see this I do hope they'd take the opinions of customers like you also into some of these issues.
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Edit: One oddity I did forget to mention was a few weeks ago I saw something unexpected on the cable listings. (My tv broke like over a week ago so I haven't watched any cable since then) But late night I think it was on TBS they aired some of the DC Lego specials. This would be one of what i believe years that TBS chose to air something animated that CN/Boom had dibs on. (They air licensed shows from FOX regularly, but up until that point I didn't think other Turner networks could touch material like that, some of the things WB owned prior to the merger were licensed to other networks like Animaniacs but that was about it) I wonder if that was a test to see if provided AT&T wins they might restructure the networks themselves outside their current parameters.
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Post by ruben MG on Jan 30, 2019 18:45:07 GMT -5
I'm back and let's roll. There has been no verdict yet, which some people do consider surprising. However this Friday (February 1st) the agreement AT&T and the DOJ agreed to ends. So that means AT&T can start whatever it's long term rearranging plans are for Turner. However the catch is will they want to do so before the verdict comes in. If the verdict is in AT&T's favor, they have squat to worry about. If the verdict is in the DOJ's favor than they would probably have to undo anything they did post February 1st. I honestly expected we would have a verdict one way or another by now. I think for them to still be discussing the case means it's still a possibility it could swing either way. As far as the other comments that is one area I happen to agree that it is a shame of all the legal redtape between different countries often make it hard. Just as for the record, i'm one of those "want as many things available to as many people as possible" kind of people. But as for here I can only post what I see and hope for the best. But if people happen to see this I do hope they'd take the opinions of customers like you also into some of these issues.
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Edit: One oddity I did forget to mention was a few weeks ago I saw something unexpected on the cable listings. (My tv broke like over a week ago so I haven't watched any cable since then) But late night I think it was on TBS they aired some of the DC Lego specials. This would be one of what i believe years that TBS chose to air something animated that CN/Boom had dibs on. (They air licensed shows from FOX regularly, but up until that point I didn't think other Turner networks could touch material like that, some of the things WB owned prior to the merger were licensed to other networks like Animaniacs but that was about it) I wonder if that was a test to see if provided AT&T wins they might restructure the networks themselves outside their current parameters.
thank you very much for keeping us informed
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Post by mattpricetime on Jan 30, 2019 21:09:47 GMT -5
No problem. Still no verdict but there is a news story that kind of came out of left field. As mentioned here right now there are three major subgroups under Warner Media, Warner Bros, HBO and Turner. Apparently on the 4th quarter results, only Warner Bros met its target mark. HBO and Turner both under performed expectations. Obviously this is not a good sign for Turner given AT&T is looking to either rearrange or be forced to sell it. Some people with power positions in the current Turner organization probably aren't too happy right now. But of course for Scooby this is good news. He's under the Warner Bros side. So we can continue to hope once the dust of this whole merger issue ends, the AT&T people will continue to have big plans for Mr. Doo (and probably some of his friends too)
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Edit: This isn't super news but it's highly interesting symbolically. So no new post. This isn't something AT&T could only do today but it made a move that is the kind of stuff i've been saying could probably happen to Turner.
AT&T has shut down Machinima and basically just kept the people doing jobs they wanted and reshuffled them into Otter Media. For a lot of us, this move doesn't do much. But it does show us that AT&T has it in it's mindset the building blocks they have might get totally rearranged just like that. You don't want to be in a position disappointing AT&T right now. I think the odds Turner makes this out of here without a decent reshuffle, just got lower.
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