AT&T Inc. booked a $15.5 billion charge on its pay-television business, reflecting the damage cord-cutting has taken on its DirecTV satellite unit even as the company’s HBO Max streaming service’s growth ramped up.
The write-down created a fourth-quarter loss as the media-and-telecommunications giant weighs the potential sale of its pay-TV assets and executives focus their investments on newer technologies. The company reported quarterly revenue declines in its legacy-video and WarnerMedia units, offsetting gains in its core wireless-phone division.
Executives called the noncash accounting charge a sign of the pay-TV unit’s aging status as the Dallas company promotes an internet-streaming model that gives its content-production business a direct line to viewers.
“Our biggest and single-most important bet is HBO Max,” Chief Executive John Stankey said on a conference call Wednesday. Executives plan to expand the service’s footprint in other countries this year and launch an advertising-supported version in the second quarter.
Overall, AT&T reported a fourth-quarter loss of $13.89 billion, or $1.95 a share, compared with a profit of $2.39 billion, or 33 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 2.4% to $45.7 billion.