Why the AT&T-Time Warner Case Was So Closely Watched

Every time a liberal whines about net neutrality and telco mergers, Google gets another 1% market share, more of your data and a free pass from U.S. regulators. They throw lobbying dollars around like candy and fund all of the purported public advocacy groups like Public Knowledge and Free Press. You are reading this article, because Google wants you to be reading it - as opposed to an article about their privacy issues. They butter up the reporters, just like the politicians.

Apart from Justice Department policy that differentiates between vertical and horizontal mergers and how that affects future competition in the industry along with consumer pricing, the main reason for welcoming Judge Leon's decision is that the Trump administration intervened, not on the merits one way or the other, but as a way, in response to presidential pique and threats, of punishing the press for reporting and commenting on the news. Above all other considerations, Trump must not be allowed to suppress the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.

The original choice was either having A Phone Company providing universal service, maybe cells too, independent cable providers, 500 channels of independent programming providers and a fight for the concept of cellular service or chaos. The courts chose chaos - and for a while it was good - competing internet/tv cable (two operations soon to merge) and phone service no longer guaranteed (the only phone service on the two Fire Islands is now cellular, the only high-speed net/tv is satellite) And 300 or so cable programming channels are now owned by telcos, and the programming cos. own the studios, or, in the case of Disney/ABC, the studios own the program providers, even for people without cable! So if Verizon wants CNN, or any Warner product, also “free tier” included with basic cable, it must make a deal with a cable service it might compete with in some markets, making people pay fot CNN/People-Sports Illustrated/Warner to offer customers news with commercials, increasing profit for a company selling the remains of Luce’ Time-Life for scrap snd rights to the photo archives. We’re talking about a company that should have been allowed to fie when it spent billions on worthless when purchased, worth less when “sold” [nasty bodily analogy to fools] On Line! We would have been much better off keeping Ma Bell together while other firms integrated the “metamedium” to steal author Pat Cadigan’s name for it. This pro-trust merger & the other verticals are obscene service fee-grabs

Since when do Time Warner/Spectrum and AT&T not have competing products? Both do Telephone, Internet, Television (Via Cable or Satellite). To suggest AT&T is known as a cell phone company would be preposterous. While this may help AT&T against Amazon, it will only in the sense that AT&T is now much larger. This will be so bad for consumers. Antitrust laws were designed to deal with these monopolies, but are seemingly disregarded here. This merger is playing out right in front of the FCC and the courts. It is convenient timing that Net-Neutrality was just thrown out, because this deal will make AT&T the king of the hill. Mr. Trump, get loud!

"The judge, Richard J. Leon . . ., said the Justice Department had not proved that the telecom company’s acquisition of Time Warner would lead to fewer choices for consumers and higher prices for television and internet services." And when it does, has Judge Leon some way to undo this mistake? As an AT&T customer, I can vouch for their commitment to raising prices.

Forget Trump Inc with North Korea Apprentice Edition. This was the real scary deal that no one saw coming.

I feel like Patrick Bateman had something to do with this one...

Stop Microsoft from bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, but not Ma Bell from bundling channels it's about to own with wireless services it offers. Great.. All monopoly laws need to be re-written to account for vertically integrated monopolies which do increase prices and distort the market.

Aren't tax breaks great for all of us?

The American People don’t want this merger. At some point, Capitalism needs to be checked. Enforce the existing Antitrust laws. Cable/WiFi/pay as you go tv bills are about to go through the roof.

“We want people engaged with their mobile devices all day watching movies and video,” Mr. Stephenson said in April during the trial. Our deeply cynical corporate state speaks. Repeal Citizens United, NOW.

So much for anti-monopoly laws.

This is so exciting! Who knew that America had a Department of Justice .

For the sake of freedom and choice and influence, corporations should be limited in size by measures of percentage ownership of a market and net valuation. Scale might lower price at the register, but we pay as a society for unchecked profit and monopoly. Greed isn’t good.

Most of these comments talk about net neutrality as if it has been around for ages. Please remember it was only put in place in 2016 after vociferous lobbying by Silicon Valley who used most of the bandwidth (think Netflix) but paid none of the tens of billions of dollars for the pipes......Now, Netflix doesn't really even care about net neutrality. This is just another canard!!!!

It Trump still "tired of winning"?

This is about one thing: Gaining as much media exposure with a certain slant/opinion politically as possible. The DOJ is not interfering with the merging of conservative broadcasters Sinclair and Tribune Media which would make Sinclair the largest broadcaster in the country, with broad reach in local markets, and who’s executive chairman David Smith is a friend of Trumps.....and BTW, Sinclair would require local news persons to read a scripted statement during each broadcast which states that their new is real news, not fake news. But the DOJ does have a problem with AT&T Warner merger and the Justice Dept.’s antitrust division’s now demands that AT&T sell off assets like CNN in order for a merger to occur. Trump hates CNN because of their critique of his leadership and Trump has even gone so far as to tweet cartoons of him beating up CNN in a boxing ring, and a train hitting CNN on a railroad track. “Antitrust lawyers were scratching their heads Wednesday over published reports that the Justice Department is insisting that AT&T sell its CNN cable network, or its DirecTV satellite television unit, if it wants to win approval to buy Time Warner.” https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/08/antitrust-lawyers-dont-see-doj-rationale...

By the logic presented here, it would be just fine if Google or Cloudflare were to operate a monopolistic ISP. In tandem with the repeal of net neutrality rules, they could throttle any website that does not subscribe to their services. Likewise, AT&T can now preferentially serve content generated by Time Warner. This position that vertical mergers are not harmful to consumers is woefully out of date and unprepared to deal with the realities of the digital distribution pipeline.

Question of the day is how much they donated to either political party in 2016 and how much are they putting into the 2018 election?

We need a new framework that can help reduce corporate concentration. It isn't just that media companies and telecommunications are very concentrated, almost all industries are. How many big banks are there? What about major airlines? Pharmaceuticals? And don't get me started on the big tech companies. We need a new framework to reduce corporate power. It isn't just about blocking mergers and being more active breaking up the largest companies. Or creating regulatory frameworks for specific industries (I.e. Net neutrality). It is about taking back our democracy. Mandating publicly financed elections. Giving workers guaranteed revenue (not profit) share and voting rights on corporate boards. Limiting corporate influence on every aspect of public life. Corporations today seems to believe they have a constitutional right to profit. This is a disgrace. We The People need to act. Vote in November.

Generally, mergers and acquisitions are bad for consumers, whether vertically or horizontal. We’re creeping back to the era of the “company store.” Equally disturbing is that “consumers” are passive or asleep. Consumer groups are not vociferously challenging these mergers nor the ending of net neutrality. Or, is it that such challenges are being ignored or muted? True competition for consumer dollars seems like an archaic concept. If you want to compete, make a better product. Oh yeah, that would take ingenuity and cost money. So I guess this is where we see if the hushed payments to Michael Cohen bear fruit for AT&T.

Today, we are seeing the the continuation of the recreation of Ma Bell, a monopoly. Instead of land lines and telephone, it will be smart phones, Internet connectivity and content. What is bad about this is that T-Mobile may get Sprint. Sinclair may get Tribune TV Stations. Comcast or Disney may end up with FOX. Viacom may do a hostile takeover of CBS. Next stop, some one wanting to take over Verizon, and DISH Network for their wireless spectrum. FYI, when the Bell System was broken up, it created a dozen or so smaller companies, plus the creation of compnies like MCI, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile and other smaller companies. During the 1980s, there were a number of independent cable TV start ups. Today, much of this has been merged into larger companies. Not only did the obtain communication, but teh means of delivering content, as well as owning content. The same thing happened to TV and radio stations. Today, there is one less competitor. And, this is not over yet. We still may end up with AT&T controlling the whole mess.

AT&T is a terribly run company. Without regard to the antitrust issues, an AT&T takeover means ultimate disaster for the acquiree.

Five key questions: 1. What's in it for Donald Trump? 2. What's in it for Melania Trump? 3. What's in it for Ivanka Kushner? 4. What's in it for Jared Kushner? 5. What's in it for the GOP? Well, I guess only one question matters--the first one.

Since Trump does not care about consumers, this has to be about hating CNN. Allow me to present my hypothesis. Not allowing the deal is protecting consumers over providers. I never thought this day would come. Trumps administration is right about this deal the same way it is wrong to end internet neutrality. Which makes me think that there are no uniform criteria. This deal will allow AT@T to give speed and quality preference to Time Warner. By exactly the same token, setting policy to end internet neutrality is doing the opposite, it is governing to favor providers at the expense of consumers. It allows providers of the internet to charge whatever they want for different speeds and qualities. Consumers pay.

The thing that is amazing here is that in the 1980's the government fought tooth and nail to break up the phone company --- Ma Bell . It took years, millions upon millions of dollars and really messed up Bell Labs and other Bell companies with people losing jobs. This done because the government felt the phone compamy was too powerful and a monopoly. So why on earth would or should that same government allow a merger like this?

What's funny about this case is that AT&T/TW lawyers spent most of their time arguing that they needed to merge to complete with FANNG (Facebook, Google, ,Netflix) , and very little time trying to disprove the government's case that they would raise prices and use their exclusive content arrangements to ask for more per subscriber. Which sounds to me like the Government made their case. Really how many people here think that all of a sudden these mega corps will be benevolent and not use the content as leverage, happens all the time.. What AT&T is forgetting is buying content your dad and grandpa like (HBO, CNN etc) , doesn't guarantee that younger more affluent millennials will care or subscribe, personally AT&T is way overpaying for a potentially dated content portfolio as the world moves to alternate sources of entertainment

As much as the monopoly arguement can be used here, dont forget AT&T is a distributor that is buying content and as much as you can argue monopolization, Amazon and Netflix are already do the same thing they distribute content and own their own as well. Not allowing AT&T to do the same is actually anticompetive in a way. Cord cutting is the future so allowing Amazon and Netflix to carry on without competion may backfire

Sorry to say but in this case I side with AT&T. Media content which TW provides is not finite or needs a significant capital commitment to produce. If AT&T overcharged for content such as HBO or CNN, competitors can easily produce or buy alternative competitive content. Actually I'm more fearful of AT&T choking out media content providers through the overcharging for its monopoly network services due to the ending of net neutrality

I am against the deal, it smacks of a monopoly, and that may lead to a country where the top 1 percent own 40 percent of the nations wealth,....oh wait a minute.

Just in time for the reversal of Net neutrality, coincidence?

Although, I own T, I don't want this merger. Monopolies will further carry us to the type of society we had back in the 20's and 30's, in the time of the robber barons, vast economic inequality, and the rise of fascism..

Uh, how is this not all about control of physical layers of networks? TW holding the buried coax, and Ma Bell the satellites and cell towers? The only real competition in my locale for both "cable" TV and high speed internet is between TW and DirectTV. Remember, net neutrality just went away.

When I was a consultant to Time Warner Cable rollout of it's prototype "Full Service Network", I took the position that transmission is a natural monopoly, but content is a free-for all, so they should offer what became "Road Runner" over their natural monopoly and leave content to all providers, including itself. Now these companies are using their natural monopoly over transmission to monopolize content.

In view of the loss of Net neutrality, I hate to see unique content combine with delivery medium for a monopolistic whammy on bandwidth.

The rest of the world treats internet service as a natural monopoly operated under government supervision to allocate network segments to providers to avoid wasteful duplications.

Net neutrality gone with a fake campaign to bolster it's support, former industry-lobbyists in the cabinet, and mergers like this one. The Trump admin is making Robber Barons great again 1890's style.

The antitrust laws have for far too long been ignored. Where's the competition? This merger must NOT go through...period.

It's ironic to say the least that an administration that says it opposes this merger because it would be anti-competitive installed an FCC chairman who ended net neutrality. In fact, the adimnistration's opposition has nothing to do with competition. It stems from a vendetta against CNN. If AT&T had any other target, the merger wouild be waved through.

It's already a major set back and nightmare that net neutrality has been reversed. This deal, if allowed to proceed, signals the end of the "golden age" of the internet and the take over is no different than every other modern communications technology in history – telephone, radio, cinema and TV. History is repeating itself if this deal goes through. There was sound reasoning why the AT&T monopoly was broken up by the Federal Communications Commission back in the early 1980's.