LOS ANGELES — Wall Street gave a cool reception Monday to AT&T’s plan to buy Time Warner Inc., illustrating sharply divergent views on whether the blockbuster deal will usher in a new era of media consolidation or merely more scrutiny from federal regulators.
But the uncertainty didn’t stop some analysts from speculating about various combinations that could transform the media business — tantalizing pairings of tech giants with studios, and cable companies with wireless carriers.
A motivator for more deal-making: survival. Traditional media companies are girding for battle with tech powerhouses Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon.com. Amazon and Netflix already have made aggressive moves into producing Hollywood content.
“Overall, we believe we are likely one more deal away from potentially reshaping the landscape for at least a decade,” Barclay’s Equity Research analyst Kannan Venkateshwar wrote in a Monday report. “We are in the midst of a great convergence cycle, which is likely to impact business models for years to come.”
AT&T’s top executive said Monday that he didn’t want his company to get trampled in the stampede.
“The convergence in terms of media and distribution is moving fast,” AT&T Chairman and Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told analysts in a conference call. “We want to be at the front of it. We don’t want to be chasing it.”
Analysts were split on whether AT&T’s move would spur other companies to combine. Several attributed AT&T’s play as a way to position itself as a more robust competitor to Google and Facebook, which capture the lion’s share of online advertising, and Amazon and Apple, which have strong customer relations.
Some observers believe that another cellphone giant, Verizon Communications, might be interested in buying CBS and Viacom to bulk up in a similar way that AT&T is trying to do with its acquisition of Time Warner, which owns HBO, CNN and Hollywood’s largest film and television studio, Warner Bros.
CBS Corp. is mulling whether to recombine with Viacom Inc., which owns Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures — a marriage proposed by the controlling shareholder family of Sumner Redstone. Viacom and CBS were part of the same company until Redstone divided his empire in 2006 to untangle the assets that he had spent years putting together.
Tech giants like Apple, Google and Amazon are seen as likely players in the entertainment industry and could be interested in buying content firms.
Amazon, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant, has invested heavily in creating its own original TV shows and movies for its Prime streaming service. Meanwhile, Google’s popular YouTube is ramping up original video content for its Red subscriptions service.
One of the biggest question marks is Walt Disney Co.’s next move. The conglomerate’s growth over the last decade has been largely fueled by the addition of such juggernaut properties as Pixar Animation, Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm.
Disney, Netflix, CBS and Viacom declined to comment. .
