Time Warner Inc. shareholders voted Wednesday to sell the entertainment company to telecommunications giant AT&T for $85.4 billion, The Los Angeles Times reports.

“Stockholders representing nearly 79% of the outstanding Time Warner shares approved the merger agreement, according to a preliminary count of votes during a special shareholder meeting in Atlanta,” the paper reports. “The blockbuster stock and cash deal would transform Dallas-based AT&T into a phone and television behemoth with such prominent media assets as CNN, HBO, TBS, Cartoon Network and the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank.”

The deal, which requires approval from the federal government, would bring an end to the independent ownership of the country’s third-largest entertainment company.

The report notes: “AT&T has shown a voracious appetite for new properties as the mobile phone market matures and revenue stalls. AT&T purchased DirecTV nearly two years ago to become the nation’s largest pay-TV company.”