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pressure. That explains the company’s
buying spree—and its massive debt load.
Buying DirecTV in 2015 for $67 billion
and Time Warner in 2018 for $104 billion
has made AT&T the most heavily in-
debted nonfinancial company in America.
Including lease obligations, which the
accountants say must now be counted as
debt, the company owes over $200 bil-
lion. That’s about the size of the external
debt of Taiwan. Such massive debt merely
matches Stephenson’s audacity. “AT&T’s
ambition in acquiring Time Warner goes
far beyond transforming a storied Ameri-
can company,” says Craig Moffett, a long-
time telecom analyst and an AT&T critic.
“Its goal is nothing less than a complete
reinvention of the media ecosystem.”
Whatever the outcome of the strategy,
Stephenson owns it. He has been CEO
since 2007, and now, at age 59, he has time
to see it through. How his gigantic bet
turns out will define his career and deter-
mine the future of one of America’s mostT&T WAS NOT ACTUALLY ACQUIRED
by a company called Game of
Thrones Corp. earlier this year,
though consumers could be
forgiven for wondering. AT&T
cell phone stores across the land
seemed to have been taken over
by a vaguely medieval industrial
behemoth that had filled them
with the heraldry of House
Lannister, House Stark, and
other Westerosi factions, plus
costumes, weapons, and GOT-emblazoned smartphone cases,
wireless chargers, and water bottles. Viewers of March Madness on
AT&T-owned TBS saw slightly weird GOT-themed promos for the
college basketball tournament and GOT-themed tweets (“Send a
raven—they’re on to the #Elite8. #MarchMadness”). Another sign
of GOT’s ascendance: The Iron Throne itself—or rather, a seven-
foot-high, 310-pound replica of it—sits prominently in the lobby of
AT&T headquarters in Dallas.
AT&T chief Randall Stephenson walks past that throne every
day, but he doesn’t think much about the Lord of the Seven King-
doms. In his world, Game of Thrones symbolizes something else:
the first faint glimmers of how his costly vision for AT&T will work.
Using company properties to publicize the show’s final-season pre-
miere on AT&T-owned HBO is a minor example of the synergies
he foresees; AT&T wireless customers with top-tier plans can also
get HBO for free, for example. That’s a result of another titanic
battle, the end in February of AT&T’s fight with the U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice to win legal clearance to fully integrate operations
with the Time Warner A-list media properties AT&T had agreed to
buy more than two years earlier: most prominently, HBO, Warner
Bros., CNN, TBS, and TNT.
Stephenson’s strategy is breathtaking in scale and scope, the
largest transformation underway at any company in the For-
tune 500. AT&T’s main traditional competitor, Verizon, has chosen
an entirely different path, and Stephenson’s new rivals are in
markedly different businesses. Back when AT&T was Ma Bell, after
all, it was proudly staid, reliable, and boring. Stephenson marvels,
“I spend as much time thinking about Amazon and Netflix as I do
thinking about Verizon and Comcast now.”
Stephenson also must think about the phone business, though,
because it remains his biggest business by far—and it’s not grow-
ing, putting AT&T’s stock price and its financial future under
0
100
200
300%
’09
VERIZON
S&P 500 INDEX
AT&T
SOURCE: BLOOMBERG
2010 2015 2019
STOCK TOTAL RETURNS SINCE
JAN. 1, 2009
A
AT&T MEDIA AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
CRAIG MOFFET T : Wall Street telecoms analyst