U.S. telecoms giant AT&T Inc is slot xo close to reaching a deal to combine media assets including and HBO with Discovery Inc, which owns lifestyle TV networks such as HGTV and TLC, according to news reports citing unnamed sources.The deal will cancel AT & T's $ 108.7 billion acquisition of U.S. media group Time Warner in 2018 and underscores the perception that TV viewers have moved to streaming, which It has to be scaled up like Netflix Inc and Walt Disney Co.

The combination will create a separate new company from AT&T, potentially worth $ 150 billion, including debt, Financial Times reports.The Discovery currently has a total market cap of about $ 30 billion of debt.A deal may be announced later this week, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news.A spokesman for AT&T and Discovery declined to comment.The proposed settlement is the studio's most powerful one of Hollywood's Hollywood, which is home to the franchise, Harry Potter and Batman are exhibited empty home.

Description of cooking and nature and science With the acquisition of Time Warner, AT&T seeks to build a media and telecommunications powerhouse that combines content and distribution. This has proven to be a costly strategy as it tries to simultaneously expand the new generation of wireless services, most recently borrowing $ 14 billion to buy wireless spectrum.AT&T is trying to ease off debt-laden acquisitions and lighten the balance sheet. In February it agreed to sell a third of DirecTV satellite

TV service it bought in 2015 for $ 68 billion to TPG Capital in a deal worth $ 16.25 billion.HBO and HBO Max have 63.9 million global subscribers, compared to more than 100 million for Walt Disney Co's Disney + and 207.6 million for Netflix.Discovery, whose portfolio includes Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, accounts for 88.3 million homes in the United States. The streaming service Discovery +, which launched in January, has 15 million subscribers.