Netflix is about to get some new competition in the streaming wars from the same company that owns one of its biggest rivals, HBO.
AT&T Time Warner revealed today that the company is planning to build and launch a new video streaming service that will offer TV shows, films, libraries, documentaries and animation.
The news of AT&T’s streaming service comes as Apple is ramping up its efforts to create a streaming service too with its own original content. Apple currently has over 20 television shows currently in the works, though it hasn’t revealed how it plans to distribute them. CEO Tim Cook recently told investors that Apple believes the cord-cutting trend will accelerate faster than most company’s expect.
AT&T gets into the TV streaming biz
AT&T hasn’t said yet if it will develop its own TV shows, or if it will simply rely on content created from Time Warner and its other companies. It sounds like most of the content will come from Time Warner.
“We are committed to launching a compelling and competitive product that will serve as a complement to our existing businesses and help us to expand our reach by offering a new choice for entertainment with the WarnerMedia collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation loved by consumers around the world,” said WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey. “We expect to create such a compelling product that it will help distributors increase consumer penetration of their current packages and help us successfully reach more customers.”
With the AT&T/Time Warner merger, AT&T could bundle the streaming package into its telecom service offerings. Verizon tried something similar with its Go90 streaming service but ended up shutting it down. AT&T will have competition with Disney, Amazon, YouTube, Netflix, HBO and Apple once it finally is ready for the market. The biggest question will be whether there’s room in the market for all that streaming goodness.
