Hmm. FCC allows rules to let Sinclair Broadcasting expand to becoming a monopoly. OK! Net Neutrality? Possibly gone by next month.
AT&T and Time Warner to merge together?: "It would mean higher monthly television bills and fewer of the new, emerging innovative options that consumers are beginning to enjoy."
Yes I know the FCC is not the DOJ, or the FTC. Just seems like Republican-led departments and commissions can't seem to get their story straight on whether mergers and fewer options are beneficial to customers or not.
I'm not for this merger. But certainly seems like Trump's interference in this is probably going to udnermine any semblance of partiality by the DOJ.
The FCC loosened media ownership rules (a complete ban on owning a newspaper and TV/radio station in the same market) that have no counterpart in most EU countries. The DOJ sued to block a merger that would get intense antitrust scrutiny in most EU countries. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
Is europe a good example of perfection here? It seems to me that rules on media ownership are a good thing. Here in the Czech republic, our prime minister owns all but one major newspapers, two TV stations, and a radio station. https://vergecampus.com/2016/09/andrej-babis-and-the-separat...
The point is that Sinclair is very pro-Trump, to the point that all affiliates nationwide are forced to run pro-Trump editorial content while CNN publishes things Trump doesn't like.
The FCC always does the wrong thing. After eight decades of constant efforts to retard progress and competition in media and radio technology, we can't really be surprised now. I for one am not sad to see other regulators attempt to pick up the slack. I'd certainly like to see a more active FTC, for example.
Seems intended to indicate a lack of influence from the Trump administration, and that this behavior is not unusual in other political bodies such as the EU.
It shows that this is not a controversial decision at all and similar decision would be probably made in all western countries. Whether there is some Trump vendetta as driver for this decision is not very relevant if the decision is correct.
But that is completely negating that the media markets in EU and the US are completely different.
For instance, a number of european countries have a strong public broadcaster to provide a neutral source of news. PBS or NPR aren't really comparable in most cases.
And in many cases, local stations aren't owned by a corporate entity, completely making such rules irrelevant.
Isn't providing a "Neutral" source of news basically impossible? Even if you could somehow address all sides of a story (e.g. besides actual scientists let's also interview some flat earthers to allow them to explain how the Earth is flat) the mere fact that there's too much to report and the channel invariably needs to choose what goes on air mean that it's no longer neutral.
Public channels are also funded by the government, so there can be institutional pressure to present the government actions in a good light. Even if there isn't, a change in public policy might mean less spending on the public channel, which might mean journalists lose their jobs, which is significant incentive to promote pro-status quo viewpoints on the channel.
> Isn't providing a "Neutral" source of news basically impossible? Even if you could somehow address all sides of a story (e.g. besides actual scientists let's also interview some flat earthers to allow them to explain how the Earth is flat) the mere fact that there's too much to report and the channel invariably needs to choose what goes on air mean that it's no longer neutral.
Giving air time to flat-earthers isn't neutral, it's pandering to idiots.
Neutral is clear and factual reporting on issues, regardless of where on the political spectrum that lands you.
The german TV station Das Erste is quite good at being impartial and neutral.
Reports are factual, there is little to no opinion and government issues are frequently included. Atleast in my experience they have been very good at keeping neutral.
Neither of those countries has a categorical ban like the U.S. had. They have market share-based restrictions, with e.g. certain restrictions kicking in where the newspaper has 20% national market share. I'm not sure any U.S. newspaper would hit that number.
Last I heard Australia was getting rid of some media ownership restrictions. I think one reason is the dismal performance of media companies in Australia.
While I hesitate to presume any logic on the part of government agencies, I don’t see a problem. I would assume the answer is that the specific facts of each individual case are considered, rather than applying a blanket “all mergers are bad/good”.
Net Neutrality: impinges on profits of big telecoms.
Sinclair: amazing opportunity to simultaneously reward a major republican donor and disseminate overtly biased, conservative talking points in millions of American homes.
ATT: great opportunity to kneecap CNN, which the President hates.
You have a good point, but don't kid yourself with "overtly biased, conservative talking points".
There is little to no truly balanced and fact-oriented media. Obviously, except for those perceived as such by their respective viewers on either side of the political spectrum.
AT&T does not have any content prior to this deal, which is why it is called a vertical merger. They are simply not competing in any business. It is quite similar to Comcast buying NBC/Universal.
Just wanted to point out that this does not include Time Warner Cable which was already acquired by Spectrum. (And yes, that merger made bills go up. Even the customer service reps admit it)
Spectrum is a product of the Charter Communications company[0]. Further, it is very rare (possible non-existent) for 2 cable companies to operate in the same market. Time Warner Cable and Charter did not compete in any market, as far as I know, so it is unclear how their merger would create less competition when the cable industry mostly operates as a monopoly in any given market in the first place.
Everyone is quick to bring up President Trump. If you don’t think about the media landscape (big scary picture) and are quick to say this is lawsuit is a political move you are naive and uninformed. If this isn’t blocked overtime you will see companies like Google and FB attempting to gain more power and control in the same way. The DOJ had no other choice. They had to sue to protect the interest of consumers. They see where things are heading and its not good.
These deals are never good for consumers. When a few companies have too much power and control their only goal is to get more at the expense of the consumer. This is dangerous and should not be taken lightly.
everybody is quick to bring up president trump becuase this so so opposite to everything else the administration has done.
I absolutely agree, this merger should be blocked. It's against the interest of the consumers. The DOJ is doing their jobs. But everything else the federal government is doing lately isn't. They've been repealing regulations left and right. Anything to increase corporate freedom is an immediate go, except this merger. If they want to work in the interest of the consumers, how about protecting net neutrality? Instead, they only work in the interest of the consumer when it's also working against the interest of an entity that the president has declared an enemy, which makes it hard to believe that they're doing the right thing for anything other than the pettiest of reasons.
That’s malarkey. That’s not why it’s happening at all. The Trump admin has no problem with consolidation. They are just challenging this merger because it competes against Fox.
Consolidation can be both good and bad for consumers. Consolidation can permit economies of scale which can drive down prices of sufficient competition remains in the market. Amazon, for example, just couldn’t offer the same services at the same price if it were say, 20 different competing companies. Same thing for Wal-Mart, or Google.
Economics of scale in this instance are not applicable. But they do lower the providers cost. They never pass along the savings. Media companies like this do not decrease prices as output increases. If this were true cable boxes would be free in 2017. Looking around my house I pay for 1 Hub, 1 router, 3 boxes and 4 remotes. My provider just did an “upgrade” now all homes use 1 hub and 1 router per house and x number of “child” boxes. This means the provider is benefiting not the consumer. In fact, if my hub goes out, all my child boxes go out by design. I asked for 4 hubs and no “child” boxes and they said this upgrade is to reduce their cost, not mine. I’m not the only one complaining. My monthly fee is higher than before the upgrade. All these companies care about is power, control and profits. While this deal is considered a “vertical acquisition” it is not bc the media landscape is changing and the lines are more blurred than ever.
Amazon, Walmart, and Google were each one, focused company that got to where they were that way. Mergers of companies that scheme on their customers with oligopoly or monopoly tactics have almost always been bad for their customers. Also, if they were so great, they wouldn't be lobbying to block taxpayer-funded alternatives because it's always better when it's the private sector. The municipal versions would be slower, have worse service, cost more, and fall apart due to red tape. Yet, many that occurred despite Comcast et al's bribes to politicians were delivering better and faster service at same price or cheaper.
Better to split them up even further with regulations on things like sharing lines to force them to improve speed and service.
That reasoning makes no sense. Consider the article on the front page today about taxpayer-funded cafeterias in India. Everyone rightly pointed out that these cafeterias could crowd out privately owned restaurants. There is no real “competing” with a government-backed service. (The postal service, for example, is subject to elaborate rules to prevent unfair competition with private carriers. And countries like the UK and Germany have privatized their postal services for good reasons.)
That is not to say that municipal alternatives don’t have a place. My view is that state and local governments should get rid of build out requirements that restrict the development of competition while building municipal service to areas left unserved by the market. That’s a traditional government function: serving as the safety net. But that’s not what’s usually proposed.
Increased profits come from somewhere. Nothing is ultimately good for consumers, they are just misled to believe it is.
Increased jobs, in the case of walmart, come at the price of workers having to apply for foodstamps to live. Cheaper prices come at the cost of driving local stores out of business. Google and amazon are shitty companies too, no matter how much they pay for good PR.
Everyone is quick to bring up President Trump. If you don’t think about the media landscape (big scary picture) and are quick to say this is lawsuit is a political move you are naive and uninformed.
Throwing out ad hominems before you've explained any reasoning is protesting a bit too much.
People are quick to bring up donald because his incompetence will almost certainly result in the lawsuit failing and this merger being allowed to go through. That's sad.
I'm against media consolidation in general, but Trump has so polluted the waters with his crusade against CNN that there's no way they'll win the court case. AT&T and Time Warner will enter in his twitter feed as evidence and courts will side with them.
Really the only thing that's preventing Trump from being one of the worst leaders in history is that he's so bad at his job that he can't successfully implement his own bad ideas.
>>but Trump has so polluted the waters with his crusade against CNN that there's no way they'll win the court case. AT&T and Time Warner will enter in his twitter feed as evidence and courts will side with them.
You think federal judges give a rat's @ss about what Trump tweets? Plus it will be appealed and appealed.
No doubt Trump wants to screw CNN, but the courts will not care what he wants. That was my point: "don't give a rat's @ss" meaning thy will not follow /bow to him.
The reality here is that the President is blocking this deal because of his issues with CNN (To those that think this is not being driven by the Whitehouse...I have this bridge I am trying to sell....). This is purely political and I am sure the President’s statements will be front and centre in the court battle.
Never though I would be on the side of AT&T or a cable company.
> Never though I would be on the side of AT&T or a cable company.
You can oppose the AT&T merger and also call bullshit on the whitehouse if that does turn out to be the motivator here. They aren't mutually exclusive.
I find it shady if that's the only reason for this happening. But mostly just shady because it hasn't taken place in previous deals where it should have.
However... That doesn't mean I'm any less against the AT&T merger.
The DOJ is asking for either DirecTV or Turner Broadcasting be excluded from the deal, because being under the same roof would be a huge boost to DirectTV over its competitors - cable companies and Dish Network.
Turner Broadcasting includes several channels. Both TNT and TBS are probably more important to the deal than CNN (the former has higher ratings than CNN across the board; the latter does in primetime); the idea that it's the sole focus for DOJ is highly questionable.
Furthermore, how does DOJ's actual demand hurt CNN? AT&T could spin out Time Warner and keep the Turner channels. Or even if Time Warner spun out the Turner channels, they wouldn't go away (they were independent of Time Warner in the 1990s).
I'm as anti-Trump as the next guy, but the idea that there's not a rational basis for DOJ's demand is simply mistaken.
The DOJ approved the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal in 2011 without requiring any major divestitures. It was a similar vertical merger involving a cable company and a content producer. It hasn't resulted in NBC Universal content being restricted to Comcast or large increases in carriage fees charged to competitors which are the major potential issues the DOJ raises. I think the DOJ is going to have a tough row to hoe in court.
The reason AT&T is purchasing Time Warner is to gain their content production capability. You don't see how forcing the sale of a major part of that would affect AT&T's reasons for even doing the merger?
The issue with forcing the spin off of Turner isn't the believe that Turner including CNN would somehow no longer exist. It is the believe that it is being to done for political purposes to allow a journalistic outlet critical of the administration to be purchased by an organization friendly to it.
This along with the FCC media ownership changes are despot 101, gain control of the media.
I think it makes plenty of sense to criticize the consistency of the DOJ.
What I'm saying is that "Trump doesn't like CNN" is a silly explanation for DOJ wanting either AT&T to spin off DTV or for Time Warner to spin off Turner Broadcasting.
Maybe the latter scenario somehow influences CNN's coverage, but it's an extremely tenuous link.
The last thing this country needs is more media consolidations... Trump snuck in to office partially because of past conservative-leaning mergers and acquisitions
Massive mergers like this should never even get off the ground. They do because Wall Street makes a ton-o-money doing them. How would this merger increase competition and lower consumer prices ?
Their argument is that the base internet access package will be cheaper than now... Neglecting to mention everyone will pay more for the "deluxe" package that gives them access to what they have today.
> The reality here is that the President is blocking this deal because of his issues with CNN ( (To those that think this is not being driven by the Whitehouse...I have this bridge I am trying to sell....).
Alright, give us your best pitch.
How do you see this happening, Trump calls DOJ and tells them to block AT&T merger because of CNN?
A lot of messaging in politics is unspoken and unrecorded to avoid culpability. You do things that favor someone higher up without being asked to (or based on available public signals), and get rewarded without having ever asked for it.
Yup, many things are done that way in politics. But lately it seems it's also pretty hard to keep things from leaking, someone there would probably let it slip to the media that "Trump wanted CNN gone". So far it's "Some Democrats have expressed concern" that's the only source.
Any is it all of the sudden these people started loving monopolies. "Well DOJ wants to something about, we clearly have to oppose it and support exactly the opposite".
The same thing happened with the TPP. Every Bernie supporter was against TPP. As soon as the White House pulled out of the TPP, I saw messages on /r/politics about "Well, we can't support it now once that Trump did it", it wasn't even ironic.
This is the THIRD time that AT&T has been sued for antitrust reasons. So for, they are 0-2.
Side note: with net neutrality going away, doesn’t AT&T have the ability to raise rates on Disney, Netflix, and others to stream across their network without a slowdown?
In America, we have a concept where only the Judicial branch can interpret the laws. So, Congress passes a law, those laws sometimes give agencies like the FTC regulatory powers- but only a judge can interpret the laws to ultimately decide what those regulatory powers are.
In this case, a judge will need to look at the laws passed by Congress, any relevant regulation (and if that regulation was legally authorized by Congress), and determine if this merger would violate those laws.
> It has authority to deny mergers without resorting to suing, right?
No. It's power to stop or modify mergers is entirely by initiating legal action or negotiated consent agreements. Either the government gets a court order against the merger or it can move forward.
I want DOJ to start doing their job and monopoly busting (without regard to politics).
We have several industries engaged in anti-competitive behavior at a scale far larger than big oil.
Wow, I'm not GP, but thanks for that comment. I was surprised that no one is talking about how this will affect internet quality and price in many regions. Turns out, no one's talking about it here because it isn't the issue I thought it was...
That doesn't change the fact that they have tons of rotting DSL networks that should be upgraded. I was being sarcastic, saying that all that money could upgrade them probably many times over.
Why would donald trumps mnssages matter? Is the justice departments case based soLely on the president wanting the merger to not go through? Those are two seperate cases. This lawsuit is going to court motives are a seperate crime.
AT&T and Time Warner to merge together?: "It would mean higher monthly television bills and fewer of the new, emerging innovative options that consumers are beginning to enjoy."
Yes I know the FCC is not the DOJ, or the FTC. Just seems like Republican-led departments and commissions can't seem to get their story straight on whether mergers and fewer options are beneficial to customers or not.
I'm not for this merger. But certainly seems like Trump's interference in this is probably going to udnermine any semblance of partiality by the DOJ.