Enlarge / Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes (R) and AT& T CEO Randall Stephenson (L) at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing about the AT& T/Time Warner merger in December 2016. (credit: Getty Images | Mark Wilson )
Former Time Warner TOP DOG Jeff Bewkes says that he and other board members were surprised that AT& T mismanaged the media company after buying it in 2018. Bewkes is quoted about the aftermath of the particular $108 billion merger in the James Andrew Miller book called Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers , which will be released on November 23.
The Wall Street Journal received an advance copy of the book and published an article today describing Bewkes’ comments:
While Mr. Bewkes doesn’t express regret over the decision to sell to AT& T, he said he is angry about how his team of top executives and typically the staff were treated.
Among the high-profile departures were HBO’s former boss, Richard Plepler. Mister. Plepler left after clashes more than strategy with John Stankey, who was tapped to run this entity—rebranded as WarnerMedia—and now will be chief executive of AT& T.
“The most disappointing thing to me about often the AT& T merger, ” Mr.. Bewkes is quoted in your book as saying, is that he and his board thought AT& T “would basically leave our people alone. ” That didn’t happen, he said. “We did not think they would go to such a level of malpractice as to not listen to anybody… even though they themselves had no experience in those areas. ”
Bewkes suggested combination with AT& T
Bewkes was Time Warner BOSS from 2008 to 2018 plus was previously the CEO of HBO. He apparently proposed the sale to AT& T several years before it happened.
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