Despite spinning off Time Inc. in 2014, the company retained the Time Warner name from 1990 until 2018, when the company was renamed WarnerMedia after it was acquired by AT&T. [ 7] On October 22, 2016, AT&T officially announced that they intended on acquiring Time Warner for $85.4 billion (or $108.7 billion when including assumed Time Warner debt), valuing the company at $107.50 per share. [ 8][ 9] The proposed merger was confirmed on June 12, 2018, [ 10] after AT&T won an antitrust lawsuit that the U.S. Justice Department filed in 2017 to attempt to block the acquisition, [ 11] and was completed two days later, when the company became a subsidiary of AT&T. [ 12] The company's final name was adopted a day later. [ 13]

It was founded as Time Warner following the merger of Warner Communications and Time Inc. in 1990, and after becoming a subsidiary of AT&T in 2018, it was renamed WarnerMedia.