Trump’s Warning: An AT&T/Time Warner Merger, Dangerous

The Huffington Post ^ | September 21, 2017 | Ken Blackwell

[Pinkbell]

(Snip)

Unfortunately, the power of these biased corporate media giants may only get more powerful under the pending mega-merger of AT&T and CNN’s parent company, Time Warner. President Trump said last year that this deal would put “too much concentration of power in the hands of too few” and promised to block it; yet there’s been dangerously little attention paid to a corporate marriage that would make two massive global media conglomerates even bigger.  Grassroots conservatives remain hopeful that President Trump remembers his campaign pledge to stop this deal.

(Snip)

These companies already have tremendous power and influence – and a combination of the two raises major concerns. Aside from CNN, Time Warner and its honchos in Hollywood own the top premium cable network in HBO, the second-biggest movie studio, and highly-watched cable networks like TBS and TNT. AT&T, meanwhile, just bought satellite company DirecTV – making it the biggest TV provider in the country. Add in its wired Internet business and the fact that it serves 134 million cell phone customers, and the picture is clear that these companies shouldn’t get to join forces.

AT&T and Time Warner will use corporate buzzwords like “synergy” and “vertically integrated” to argue that this deal is good for average Americans. In reality, it would give AT&T even more control over our TV and Internet experiences. For example, if it owned HBO, AT&T could also refuse to offer competing movie channels on an equal basis.  As the owner of the distribution they could use their power to make their own channels more attractive and available to consumers and they could effectively choose not to carry any content that competes with Time Warner’s broad slate of content.

[Pinkbell]

Here’s the worst part: Since Time Warner owns CNN, this could have hugely perilous effects on our news environment and your ability to choose what to watch. It’s not hard to see how AT&T could discriminate against other channels – including conservative voices – by putting them in a bad spot on your channel line-up and trying to make their shows hard to find.   The AT&T/Time Warner combo could easily ensure that CNN is more accessible to consumers than competitors like Fox – to further increase CNN’s power to push their liberal agenda.

Or, just like with entertainment networks, they could basically refuse to even carry smaller conservative channels like One America News, Newsmax, or The Blaze. DirecTV, in fact, only agreed to carry OAN and Newsmax this year after they announced their merger and thought it would be worth trying to buy off potential critics – and they still don’t carry The Blaze. CNN’s actions are already, in a word, deplorable – the mainstream media doesn’t need any help in limiting access to viewpoints it doesn’t like.

Should Trump block the merger? I have read rumblings that Jeff Zucker may be in jeopardy at CNN if the merger goes through. Since he's responsible for their network being Dem propaganda and the continual Russia coverage (per the O'Keefe videos) while they continue to falsely claim nonpartisanship, he certainly would not be missed.

[plain talk]

If CNN is a concern then the feds could require CNN be spun off as a condition of the merger. Often these kind of deals are not just fully accepted or fully rejected.

[McGavin999]

I think if they spin off certain parts of Time Warner it might be OK. I do think some of these things require regulation despite my natural abhorrence to regulation. I’m not worried about us finding conservative channels, we will find them

I think they should sell CNN to a group of conservative investors (Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and someone with deep pockets). I also think they need to either sell Direct TV or HBO

[Alberta's Child]

This merger should be blocked for a whole host of reasons. Federal anti-trust law is meaningless if a multi-media and multi-format conglomerate like this — or even the two companies separately as they are now constituted — is allowed to exist.

[jeffc]

AT&T ruin anything they touch.
Their cell phone service has been spotty for years with no improvement. They're still peddling DSL at 6 meg/sec BW (since 2000!!!) and do not expand service in the areas they "control".

I wish they'd go away...

[vette6387]

Judge Harold Greene broke up AT&T 30 years ago. Split off the RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies) from the long lines business. Now, they’ve managed to put it all back together with the RBOCs buying each other until SW Bell owned all of them, then they bought back “the old AT&T,” changed it to “the new AT&T,” screwed millions of customers and the only difference today is that the HQ is in Texas with a major satellite office in San Ramon, CA.
Same shitty service, same crappy attitude toward their customers. It would be a travesty to allow it to merge with anyone else. We used to call their logo “The Death Star!”

[Wuli]

Accepted excessive vertical integration in an industry is no less than legalized collusion to minimize competition.

There is already too much of this in the cable TV industry alone.

One example: Comcast is a cable-telecom outfit, with a unit of the company that has the largest stake in negotiating about and distributing advertising, not just within its own system but all across the cable and broadcast TV spectrum. True antitrust would have already made it separate that unit from the parent company.

[DoughtyOne]

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[minnesota_bound]

There is only about 6 owners of the majority of radio and tv and all the magazines. We need to break up these companies.