Which major US media mergers have closed since 2020 and who owns the resulting companies?
This fact-check may be outdated. Consider refreshing it to get the most current information.
Executive summary
Major U.S. media transactions since 2020 that are repeatedly cited in the reporting include: AT&T’s 2018–2022 divestiture and spinoff of WarnerMedia into a merged company with Discovery (closing April 8, 2022) that created Warner Bros. Discovery (reported in Dealroom and other summaries) [1] [2]. Viacom and CBS legally re‑combined into ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) after a merger process that closed in 2019–2020 and is frequently referenced as part of the recent consolidation wave [3] [4]. Other headline moves — Disney’s acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox assets (completed earlier but discussed as a recent precedent), AT&T’s purchase and later spin‑off of Time Warner/WarnerMedia, Comcast’s acquisition of Sky, and Verizon’s sale of Yahoo/AOL to Apollo — are discussed in contemporary trade coverage as major shifts reshaping ownership [5] [4] [6]. Available sources do not provide a single definitive list of “every” major U.S. media merger closed since 2020; instead they sample a set of high‑profile deals and corporate restructurings widely reported by industry press [3] [4] [1].
1. Big deals that anchored the post‑2020 narrative
Journalists and industry analysts treat WarnerMedia’s combination with Discovery (announced after AT&T’s earlier 2018 purchase of Time Warner) as the key post‑2020 landmark: AT&T spun out WarnerMedia and the assets merged with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery, a company that closed the transaction in April 2022 according to Dealroom and related coverage [1] [2]. Coverage presents this as part of a broader industry recalibration where legacy operators consolidate content libraries and streaming scale [1] [2].
2. Viacom and CBS: reunion and rebranding
The re‑merger of Viacom and CBS — often cited in industry retrospectives as a near‑term example of consolidation — is discussed as having closed around 2019–2020 and later rebranded as Paramount/Paramount Global; commentators place it in the same wave of consolidation that includes the Discovery/Warner combination and Disney’s Fox purchase [3] [4]. Trade pieces use the Viacom–CBS case to argue consolidation is a strategic response to streaming competition [3].
3. How reporters group precedent deals with 2020–present activity
Outlets and think‑pieces routinely link earlier megadeals—Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, AT&T’s Time Warner purchase, Comcast’s Sky takeover, and Amazon’s MGM buy—to explain the market forces pushing more deals after 2020 [5] [1] [7]. Analysts argue these prior transactions set both the content scale and regulatory flashpoints that shaped the 2020s M&A environment [7] [1].
4. Carve‑outs, private equity and “closed” vs. “closed+spun” deals
Coverage emphasizes that the industry finished some purchases only to later re‑structure — AT&T’s buy of Time Warner was followed by a spin‑off and merge with Discovery, and Verizon sold Yahoo/AOL to Apollo in a reported $5 billion transaction [6] [1]. Trade reporting treats such sequences as single closed deals plus later corporate housekeeping, not as continuous ownership by the initial buyer [6] [1].
5. What counts as “major” and what the sources omit
The sources supplied do not publish one canonical, exhaustive list of every major U.S. media merger that closed since 2020; they selectively highlight landmark transactions and structural examples [3] [4] [1]. Available sources do not mention a full roster of smaller TV station sales, many regional consolidations, or the dozens of digital content platform acquisitions that also closed in that period — those transactions are not listed in the provided reporting (not found in current reporting).
6. Competing perspectives and regulatory context
Trade and advocacy sources frame the wave differently: industry outlets frame deals as necessary scale plays to take on Netflix and big tech and to monetize direct‑to‑consumer platforms [3] [7], while labor and guild reports warn consolidation harms competition, labor and content availability (WGA report) and urge tougher antitrust scrutiny [8]. Both perspectives appear in the supplied reporting and explain why many deals faced regulatory attention [8] [7].
7. Bottom line for ownership today
Taken together, the reporting shows that a small number of very large corporations now control large content libraries and distribution channels — Warner Bros. Discovery being the product of the WarnerMedia+Discovery transaction, Paramount/ViacomCBS representing the reunited Viacom and CBS assets, and other legacy giants (Disney, Comcast) still dominating via earlier transactions — but the sources emphasize continued reshaping through spin‑offs, PE deals, and carve‑outs rather than a static ownership map [1] [4] [6].
Limitations: this analysis uses only the provided sources and therefore cannot verify every closed deal since 2020 or provide up‑to‑the‑minute ownership lists for every asset; for transactions or local station sales not cited above, available sources do not mention them (not found in current reporting).