The company says that the announcement delivers on the promise it made after its merger with Time Warner was finalised earlier in 2018. AT&T believes that one of the chief benefits of an AT&T/Time Warner combination is the ability to create new consumer choices taking advantage of the unmatched options, value, quality and experience of the two companies and that only four months after the deal's close, the new WarnerMedia has the momentum to deliver on that vision.

AT&T already offers a direct-to-consumer live TV offering in the form of DIRECTV Now, but the new DTC service will lean heavily on the Warner collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation, especially brands like HBO. It noted also though that existing distributor relationships would remain vital.
“This new WarnerMedia offering will bring audiences a product that doesn’t exist in the market today. And no other company can offer these brands to consumers the way that we will,” commented WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey.

“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...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.”