AT&T’s HBO Divorce Isn’t Its Last Hurdle

AT&T Inc.’s turnaround — an exacting mission that has involved selling nearly everything acquired under its former chief executive officer — is finally showing signs of working. But this long-awaited progress on the business front comes as the Dallas-based wireless giant’s public image takes a bruising. It has come to be seen by some as the corporate villain behind both the Texas abortion controversy and the rise of a pro-Donald Trump media network that has spewed baseless claims of a stolen election.

AT&T’s stock price, which opened 1% higher Thursday before erasing those gains, remains near an 11-year low. The company posted a third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ expectations and added almost twice as many wireless customers as analysts predicted. While the industry’s aggressive free-phone promotions of late helped, AT&T has said that a renewed focus on that business and a combination of moves to improve customer service are reviving the brand. It didn’t matter that subscriber growth at its HBO Max streaming-TV business was tripped up by the decision to break from a distribution relationship with Amazon.com Inc.; with AT&T already agreeing to sell HBO and the other WarnerMedia assets to Discovery Inc. next year, investors now only care about the performance of the 5G wireless and home-internet businesses.