AT&T's $85B US Bid For Time Warner Sparks Antitrust Fears in Washington (www.cbc.ca) 116
An anonymous reader writes: The two top members of the Senate's antitrust subcommittee said Sunday that they plan to probe a colossal deal between AT&T and Time Warner. In a statement, Mike Lee, R-Utah., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. -- chairman and ranking Democrat, respectively, of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights -- said AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner "would potentially raise significant antitrust issues" that the panel would "carefully examine." AT&T Chairman and Chief Executive Randall Stephenson announced the $85 billion deal Saturday as "a great fit" that will combine the "world's best premium content with the networks to deliver it to every screen." Among those new properties are HBO, Turner Broadcasting System and Warner Bros., which would give them ownership of Cinemax, CNN and DC Comics, to name a few. Last year, AT&T completed the purchase of DirecTV, the country's largest satellite television provider. In an interview with NBC News, Klobuchar pointed to past mega-media acquisitions -- including the purchase of NBCUniversal by Comcast in 2011 and of Time Warner Cable by Charter Communications -- and said the "sheer volume" of the deal should give regulators pause.Presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that he would not approve of this deal if elected as the President. In the meanwhile, Bernie Sanders have also asked Obama administration to kill this agreement. The Vermont Senator said, "The deal would mean higher prices and fewer choices for the American people,"
we have always been at peace with the klingons (Score:5, Insightful)
AT&T's $85B US Bid For Time Warner Sparks Antitrust Fears in Washington
An antitrust suit? In 2016? Where have these guys been?
We don't do antitrust in America any more. If we encumbered our industrialist plutocrats by forcing them to follow laws and stuff, we'd get eaten alive by the Soviet Union, I mean Mexico, I mean Japan, I mean China, I mean the Martians.
Congress needs to shut up and start doing its job, which is to completely fail to learn from history, and convince the electorate to do the same, by inciting them to focus on largely irrelevant cultural distinctions.
Re: (Score:3)
Congress needs to shut up and start doing its job
What job are they paid best to do, exactly?
Re:we have always been at peace with the klingons (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't see that the two party system they have enshrined the US into lets them both do what ever they want to line their own pockets..
If you have 85 billion to buy another company to "Stay competitive"... you not staying competitive your squashing competition.
Re: (Score:1)
Congress needs to shut up and start doing its job
What job are they paid best to do, exactly?
Argue about raising congressional salaries, or sending billions in cash to Iran, or not doing either of those things.
Re: (Score:2)
Congress needs to shut up and start doing its job
What job are they paid best to do, exactly?
It depends on who you ask...
The federal government signs their paychecks and the voters ask for congress's protection and wisdom in making laws.
But... most in congress don't just get paychecks. There is a second group that pays checks to congress as well (aka lobbyists and those in need of special favors). In reality, these entities also have a "job" congress is paid to do.
So the question is largely a matter of perspective. Most in congress stand to gain far more by the checks coming from the second
Re: (Score:2)
This was what my attempt at snark was getting to. Whatever we pay them can't compete with what they're getting via other means, with strings attached.
Re:we have always been at peace with the klingons (Score:5, Insightful)
Only because of the Organians (Score:5, Insightful)
We do antitrust routinely, we just don't do a lot of it. We do much more deal-blocking than we do company-busting, which hasn't really been done much in a long time. With populist sentiments rising on both sides of the aisle, the environment might almost reward politicians who favor a return to more robust antitrust activity.
Now, Congress is talking about it because of the election. It is the downside of announcing a major merger two weeks before an election. On the other hand, AT&T donates a lot...
Re: (Score:2)
Which companies do you propose we bust?
The last company people around here proposed be "busted" was Microsoft for it's bundling of IE... something which as we now know looking back has turned out to be mostly irrelevant.
A lot of people around here seem to want to "bust up" Google, but fail to provide any evidence of them actually using their position in any given market to influence their position in another unjustly. In fact, quite the opposite since they seem to go out of their way to list direct competit
Re: (Score:1)
Which companies do you propose we bust?
Any bank that is "too big to fail".
OK, not exactly anti-trust but you asked.
Re: (Score:2)
Which companies do you propose we bust?
I'd like to see more collusion-busting. IE, when entire industries band together under a trade group that makes all the companies act in concert. Seen most often in the entertainment industry like the RIAA/MPAA, but it's seen elsewhere as well. I'm not sure HOW you would break up collusion, but that's the direction I'd like to see things go.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
They let TWC/Charter through though. So what does it matter?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:we have always been at peace with the klingons (Score:5, Insightful)
An antitrust suit based on what? Not like AT&T and Time-Warner are competitors.
It was right there in the summary:
AT&T Chairman and Chief Executive Randall Stephenson announced the $85 billion deal Saturday as "a great fit" that will combine the "world's best premium content with the networks to deliver it to every screen
The company that owns the pipes shouldn't be the same company that owns the content.
"You don't want AT&T and want to switch to Google Fiber? Well then I hope you don't mind giving up CNN, HBO and other content"
The incumbent carriers already have too much power, they shouldn't get to wield content over subscribers heads too.
Re: (Score:2)
And we defeat it with sickrage.
Re: (Score:2)
Republican Senator Ron Johnson in WI thinks they're competitors. I suspect you'll be able to find other Senators from both parties who feel the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Tell me about it...people are getting WAAAY too wrapped up on govt events, etc.
I mean, freakin' Kim Kardashian got robbed at gunpoint a couple weeks ago, and that has already faded from the headlines, and I've not even seen a glint of a 2-hour long tv movie or E! entertainment channel special devoted to this historic, earthshaking event...
C'mon people....get your values prioritized , won't ya???
[/sarcasm]
Really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask yourself - who benefits from media consolidation? And the answer is, among others, the established political insiders. So you can expect that this will be a very popular merger among the political class.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Umm... Albertsons just bought Safeway not too long ago. We saw how well that went.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask yourself - who benefits from media consolidation? And the answer is, among others, the established political insiders. So you can expect that this will be a very popular merger among the political class.
Very, very true.
Remember how every TV and radio station, pre-"consolidation era" (i.e. Telecommunications Act of 1996) had some amount of news and/or public service on their airwaves? Remember how, even when the public service stuff was often relegated to 5am Sunday Morning, the news content was mostly pretty decent... Even on stations where the person just read AP news wire copy, there was still decent news programming.
NOW, if you don't seek out news programming on the radio, you mostly won't find it outside of talk stations, news/talk stations, and all-news stations. Besides that, and NPR? Nope. Music station listeners who haven't sought out radio news in the last 15 years probably think the last event of mass importance was 9/11, because that was the last time "music" stations had any significant amount of news programming on them--even earlier in the smaller markets.
It's a damn shame, but also the exact desired outcome--because it isn't "efficient" for owners of hundreds of news stations to pay to have "news departments" and "news programming" on every station, they just don't do it anymore and pocket the funds that would have been spent on it. As a bonus to the political class, the information-level available to your average citizen just dropped another few ticks, and people who used to be occasionally exposed to news programming supplemented with wingnut news online, now only hear the wingnut view and get no "mainstream" (i.e. not-made-up from whole cloth) news.
Re:Really... (Score:4, Insightful)
AT&T buys out Time Warner, they then save millions (billions?) in licensing and broadcast fees. They can also potentially cut out a lot of middle management, saving a few more million. They can then proceed to jack up the fees that other cable providers pay, because lets face it, they can and the other providers will pay up. Then once their operating costs are lower and income is higher, the savings get passed on to C-men (and women) in the form of bonuses and such for a "job well done".
The customer? Meh, we're the only game in town so they'll pay whatever price we tell them to.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Just like 90% of silicon valley, TimeWarner gave $812,406 to Hillary, so they are exempt.
https://www.opensecrets.org/po... [opensecrets.org]
You wouldn't want to interfere with the pro-government, anti-company party would you ?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Honestly, I don't think any kind of contributions (even open bribery) should be restricted by the FEC. It should be up to voters.
There's a lot of examples of politicians accepting a lot of money and going down in spectacular defeat.
Also money can be an indicator that a politician is more of an ally of the market than the bureaus.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The subtext (Score:4, Insightful)
Where's our bribe money?
Re:If being the biggest company wasn't right (Score:4, Interesting)
In conclusion, steal cable.
No. The solution is stop consuming the entertainment they put out. Don't listen to it, don't buy it, don't rent it, don't download it, don't steal it. Ignore it.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like you don't have children, or you're raising them in an abandoned mine-shaft or a "Village" out of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. It won't last. Some day soon, your kids will come across an old bottle-cap with "Fanta" written on it and turn on you like "Children of the Corn". Hell hath no fury like a child craving that stuff all the other kids know about.
Re: (Score:1)
A free market does not have the FCC or last mile monopolies.
Re:If being the biggest company wasn't right (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction: a free market without the FCC is nothing BUT monopoly.
'cause if the FCC ain't there to police things, the big companies are going to cheat.
Buy all the shit up, shut out competition.
Why? 'cause if one don't cheat, another one will, so that in the end, there can be only one.
Fair competition? Feh. Playing fair, if you don't HAVE to play fair, is for suckers.
Re: (Score:2)
FCC as directly related to frequency allocations.
Politics make strange bedfellows (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Randomly selected policy positions (Score:3, Funny)
Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders oppose this merger.
The fact that he might have a position that agrees with Bernie Sanders on some random issue is actually rather high since Trumps opinions are selected apparently at random. Anything that comes out of his mouth may as well have been chosen by throwing darts at a list of policy options. And he has a high probability of denying his positing ever having been his position the following day even if he was recorded saying it. But some amount of them will agree with Sanders just by pure chance.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Fickle as the wind (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump never solidly supported the Iraq War.
Trump never solidly supports any position. He changes his mind more often than a teenage girl changes moods. I don't actually mind someone changing their mind about a topic when they learn new information or even if they give a matter serious consideration. Trump never gives anything serious consideration. His policy positions are the very definition of fickle and certainly aren't based out of any ideology or even pragmatism but instead out of whatever whim strikes him at the time. He basically plays to whatever crowd he is facing and lies almost all the time [politicususa.com].
Hillary Clinton voted for the war; that's a bit more serious.
So did most of congress at the time and they did so largely based on bad data from our intelligence agencies and the Bush administration. A mistake I think but not one that makes me think Trump would be a better choice as commander in chief.
Re: (Score:2)
Figurehead (Score:2)
What I always find somewhat funny about that is that Bush was suppose to be the dumbest fucking person on the planet yet all these people in congress were fooled multiple times by him which should be fairly telling about the quality of the people in the house and senate.
It wasn't Bush doing the fooling. He was effectively little more than a figurehead who could get elected. The real movers and shakers were people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest. They were the tail that wagged the dog. Bush wasn't a strong enough leader to dominate the room when they were in it. Furthermore when the CIA, NSA and the rest of our "intelligence" agencies were feeding bad information it becomes hard to make a properly informed decision even at the best of times.
That said, a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And funny how conservatives insist we worship the presidency when a Republican is in office, and the opposite when the office is held by a Democrat.
Re:Fickle as the wind (Score:4, Insightful)
Hillary Clinton voted for the war; that's a bit more serious.
BS. Most of the politicians voted for it because the war was very popular with their constituents at the time.
Most wars do tend to be more popular before they start than after they drag on for 10 years.
Re: (Score:2)
BS. Most of the politicians voted for it because the war was very popular with their constituents at the time.
The war was NEVER popular with many/most constituents. What the politicians were worried about was being vulnerable to the (bogus) argument that voting against the war meant they were "soft on terrorism and getting voted out of office as a result. While there was a portion of the population that was very hawkish just like with any conflict, most people were not at any time in favor of starting a war with Iraq. There was no evidence that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks and the case against Iraq was
Re: (Score:2)
> The fact that: a) he wasn't a politician at the time, means his off-the-cuff luke warm support meant nothing;
False.
I distinctly remember his attempting to run previously. Let me google that for you.
Ah yes. here we go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Randomly selected policy positions (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there's more than chance at work.
I think Trump's populism and Sanders' populism differ by the solutions they advocate, not by the problems they diagnose.
In many ways, Trump seems to have the kind of everyman "common sense" mindset shared by ordinary people who don't really know and/or care about high-level ideological alignment and coherence. I think this is what frustrates a lot of people when it comes to politics and why so many Americans identify as "independent" -- in their minds, solutions should be practical and effective first. They're not bothered by the fact that $solution_1 and $solution_2 are ideologically inconsistent.
More than many Democrats, Sanders seemed to be more pragmatic focused, or at least he seemed that way by focusing closely on more everyday economic concerns.
The more "political" a politician or voter is, the more they seem to demand ideological consistency, purity and cohesion.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't agree with your terminology. I thought ideological consistency was the opposite of being "political." Wouldn't being "political" lean more toward following a party, rather than an ideology?
Re: (Score:2)
A political party is typically an organization whose members share a common political view, or ideology.
I think you're looking at "being political" as meaning some kind of malleability or flexibility on issues, like a politician who reads polls and takes the more popular stand on the issue vs. the one that aligns with their party.
Re: (Score:2)
A political party is typically an organization whose members share a common political view, or ideology.
Perhaps I am just jaded as an American, but in the US political parties aren't like that. They change their stance according to whoever is the leader of the party. There are some consistencies: In the US, the Republicans are against gun control and abortion. But then major issues like privacy rights and war switch every decade or so.
Perhaps, the word itself has become political. :-P
Re: (Score:2)
The list of positions a party takes can be seen as its ideology; it doesn't necessarily have to mirror a specific defined ideology (socialism, etc). Party ideology is inherently flexible in a democratic polity but generally remains stable over the medium time even if some elements of party ideals change or shift.
Democrats, for example, have generally supported social welfare, minority rights, gun control, abortion as a right, even if some of these views have shifted (ie, Bill Clinton's support for ending "
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think the major US parties follow any ideology at all. It's not that the views shift over time, it is that they are inconsistent at any given instant.
For example, Democrats support social welfare for minorities and the disabled; Republicans support social welfare for the elderly and veterans. To be more specific: Republicans supported the Medicare prescription drug program, while Democrats supported the ACA. This is because the elderly vote Republican, while minorities vote Democrat. This is ide
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps I am just jaded as an American, but in the US political parties aren't like that. They change their stance according to whoever is the leader of the party.
Political parties in the US tend to band together under a common political view, but they aren't uniform. On the Republican side, you'll have the Neo-Conservatives who are the party of intervention, of projecting American strength abroad and of proactively dealing with threats to the country and its allies. On the other hand, you'll have the Tea Partiers, who are the more Libertarian wing of the party and may have strong disagreements with the USA sending troops and money to other countries. Like Rand Paul
Re: (Score:1)
You know who does support it, though? Hillary Clinton.
Her VP candidate might not support it, but you'll notice that she's yet to come out with a position on it. The closest is an official "wait and see" statement where she doesn't take any side.
Which is code for "supports the merger but doesn't want to take a political stand on it before the elections."
There are rumors that a lot of the positive coverage she's gotten and things like the media suppressing WikiLeaks coverage is quid pro quo (something Hillary
Re: (Score:2)
You are contradicting yourself. You claim she supports it, yet claim she has a "study the impact first" stance (paraphrased).
Can't be both.
Studying the impact first is a fair and even-handed way to approach it. I agree telecom needs more competition, not less; but it's reasonable to give the co's involved a chance to make their case.
There's no shortage of political rumors on the "WebTubes". The problem is that roughly 95% of them turn out to be bunk or spin.
Re: (Score:1)
With the Clintons, "wait and see" equates to "our focus polling hasn't come back yet, so we don't have a stance."
Just once, I would like to see this "leader" actually lead the way on something.
Re: (Score:1)
Assuming that's true, that's democracy in action.
Like W into Ireq? Sorry, I'll take focus polling over that pet disaster.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, this seems to be the excuse that supporters of a certain candidate they like.
A leader isn't one who exclusively follows polls. A leader is one who sees what is right, and gets the polls to follow them.
Example: Where was Hillary on gay marriage? Following the pack until the polls shifted, then she ran out front and claimed she was always there, when in reality she was one of the last Democrats to get on board. Even Obama beat her to that one, and he was outed by Biden.
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry, I find your line of reasoning very round-about. In general, the Clintons are pretty much centrists, I would note, not really progressives.
Re: (Score:2)
I get the feeling that trump opposes it because he wants revenge on "the media" (due to supposed bias against him) -- not because trump has any deep-seated belief or philosophy that this type of merger is bad. I'm sure that isn't true for Sanders.
Bribes (Score:2)
Well, duh (Score:2)
A good rule of thumb is that if a large telco thinks a major business decision is good idea, it's probably bad for consumers.
There's obvious exceptions to this rule... building out and maintaining telco infrastructure is usually a good idea, but even there you have to scrutinize the fine print or you'll find your copper landlines left degrading while they roll out fibre and wireless.
Helloooo? Comcast?? (Score:2)
Where were these fears when Comcast and NBC Universal got together?
Re: (Score:2)
Where were these fears when Comcast and NBC Universal got together?
Chalk it up as hindsight. Enough people thought Comcast/NBC wouldn't be so bad, Comcast arguing that the magical Internet itself created the competition, and the old men bought it. Now, we should know better. We can actually see that prices didn't go down, that service didn't improve, that Comcast leverages its content ownership like... duhhhh.... of course they would.
The question is whether it's too late, get-used-to-it, mega Comcast companies are the reality now, or whether denying TimeWarner would mak
owning both pipes and content is bad (Score:1)
We learned from Standard Oil that it's a bad idea to let one company own both the pipes and the stuff the flows through them.
Re: (Score:2)
obvious anti-trust violation (Score:1)
Under no circumstances should a merger be allowed that creates the biggest company in any industry. Patently anti-competitive.
Re: (Score:2)
The new acronym should be TWAT&T.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone see that Apple bid for them too, initially? (Score:2)
All things considered, I would have rather seen Apple buy Time-Warner than AT&T -- though I'm sure that would have raised the same alarms about anti-trust.
From Apple's point of view, they sell the AppleTV, a nice little set-top box that's never achieved more than what they keep calling "hobby" status. Primarily, that's because Apple has always hoped to partner with a large selection of partners so users would be able to cut the cord on cable and have a similar amount of content with just the AppleTV. (E
about time. (Score:2)
OR Better yet,
Require that the new merged company allow anybody to compete in their arena while also requiring that they sell off CNN and any other news group (separately).
This is about advertisements (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Okay, Armchair Anarchist.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And you think you can live in a world without someone from the government telling you how to live and what to think, creating nice little safe spaces for when you get triggered.
Oh yeah. Our world is soooooooooooooooooo horrible.
How have we survived for 240 years with a government of some type? Oh it's terrible, TERRIBLE.