“AT&T didn’t know what they were buying,” said Brian Wieser, a longtime Wall Street analyst. “The strategy underpinning” the acquisition “was probably flawed.”Mr. Wieser said AT&T deserved credit for slimming down WarnerMedia’s operations and putting money into HBO Max. Shortly after AT&T closed on the deal in 2018, the company quickly worked to consolidate the media giant’s various divisions, ultimately laying off about 2,000 employees. “They were genuinely reorganizing the business to give it the clarity to be able to compete with Netflix,” he said.At the same time, AT&T is no longer best …
