Warner Bros. Discovery

Warner Bros. Discovery is a major American media and entertainment company that owns and operates streaming services, film and television studios, and cable networks. Headquartered in Los Angeles, it was formed in 2022 through the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc., following AT&T’s spin-off of WarnerMedia. Its subsidiaries include HBO, CNN, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Discovery Channel.

The company was previously known as WarnerMedia, a name adopted in 2018 when telecommunications giant AT&T acquired Time Warner. Before that, it operated under the Time Warner name, which itself was the result of a 1990 merger between Warner Communications and Time Inc. In 1996, Time Warner acquired Turner Broadcasting System, bringing with it CNN as well as other cable networks such as TNT and Cartoon Network.

Origins and growth of Warner Bros.

The initial film company was incorporated in 1923 in Los Angeles as Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., by Polish immigrant brothers Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, who had started out with a nickelodeon in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, in 1903.

In 1927, Warner Brothers introduced music and dialog with the first “talkie” motion picture, The Jazz Singer. The company was one of the leading Hollywood studios throughout the 1930s and ’40s, with a stable of actors that included Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, and Edward G. Robinson.

During the 1950s, Warner Brothers, like other movie producers, faced growing competition from television. In 1956, it was forced to sell its film assets made prior to 1950 to Associated Artists. The rights to the material were ultimately returned to the company after they were sold in 1986 to Turner Broadcasting System, which later merged with Time Warner Inc. in 1996.

Television also presented new opportunities for Warner Brothers, where the hit series Maverick (1957) and 77 Sunset Strip (1958) were made. In 1967, Jack Warner sold his remaining stake in the company to Seven Arts Productions. Two years later, Warner Bros.–Seven Arts, Inc., was bought by Kinney National Services, Inc., and became part of the newly named Warner Communications Inc. (WCI).

Kinney started business as a funeral home company in New Jersey, diversifying into parking lots and construction businesses in the New York City area. Steve Ross, who started with Kinney after marrying the owner’s daughter, was co-chief executive officer (CEO) from 1969 to 1972, when he became the sole CEO, president, and chairman of WCI. Ross embarked on an aggressive acquisition strategy, picking up electronic game maker Atari, children’s toy maker Knickerbocker Toy, family recreation company Malibu Grand Prix, the New York Cosmos football (soccer) team, and heirloom maker The Franklin Mint.

By the early 1980s, WCI was facing serious financial trouble, including in a $500 million loss in 1983. In response, the company shed many of its noncore businesses and shifted its focus to cable television, which had remained profitable. Warner Cable had launched in 1972, and by 1979, WCI had partnered with American Express Company (AXP) to form Warner-Amex Cable Communications.

The new venture became best known for its attempt to create a two-way cable system called QUBE in Columbus, Ohio. Although QUBE failed by 1984, WCI’s cable operations were thriving, and the company bought out its Warner-Amex partner for $400 million in 1985. The following year, Ross became the highest-paid American executive, with a 10-year, $14 million-a-year contract. In 1987, he began talks with the president of Time Inc., Nicholas Nicholas, about merging the two companies.

Time magazine becomes a publishing powerhouse

Time magazine first appeared on March 3, 1923, and sold 9,000 copies. Its founders, Briton Hadden and Henry R. Luce, sought readers among the one million college-educated Americans at the time. The magazine turned a profit of $700 in its second year of publication—a promising start for a fledgling media venture. By 1928, profits reached $125,000 on circulation of 200,000.

Hadden died unexpectedly in 1929, leaving Luce to run the company until he died in 1967. In 1930, Luce launched Fortune, a business monthly, and in 1936 Life, a photojournalism weekly that became one of the nation’s most popular periodicals until its slow demise throughout the 1970s.

In 1954, the company began the weekly Sports Illustrated. In the 1960s, Time started a book division, Time-Life Books, and acquired Little, Brown & Company, one of the nation’s oldest publishers. In 1974, the company started People, a weekly focused on personalities that was an outgrowth of the People section in Time.

Time first moved into the broadcast and entertainment industry in the 1950s but in 1970 announced that it was selling its broadcast holdings to focus exclusively on cable television. The next year it bought a stake in American Television and Communications Corporation, a large cable television operator, and in 1972 it founded Home Box Office (HBO), which became a leading premium cable station.

Time acquired full ownership of American Television and Communications in 1978. In 1983, HBO launched a joint venture with CBS Inc. and Columbia Pictures to form Tri-Star Pictures, which later came under the sole control of Columbia.