U.S. Justice Department Files Lawsuit to Block Merger Between AT&T and Time Warner

[thadoggfather]

The current president of the US has voiced many times on air how he hates fake news like CNN. He also voiced about challenging licenses of the free press. He also said the media is the “enemy of the American people” There are many more things he said on many occasions about how he feels about the press or CNN specifically, or any news outlet that writes something negative about him.

Trump doesn’t like CNN. Now you’re up to speed.

Thank you for bringing nothing new to the table I was well aware trump doesn’t care for cnn, the reliable champion for in house, world known cable news network fill of fake news.

My question that remains is how does lack of a merger going through impact cnn ?

What’s cnn want out of this?

 

[madferret]

Mergers in general tend to be bad for consumers. But that's the world we live in and this DOJ isn't going all anti-corporate for the sake of the little guy.

This is all about Trump's dislike for CNN's coverage of him. I guess petty and vindictive government is nothing new, but it sure seems a lot more obvious than it used to be. You hardly need a tin-foil hat to see it...

For those unaware, prior to the lawsuit, the DOJ asked AT&T to either sell off DirecTV or CNN as a condition of allowing the merger through. This was well-known so I apologize if my choice of liberal news outlet offends anyone - it's just the first link I came across.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/08/doj...dition-for-att-time-warner-deal-approval.html

 

[thadoggfather]

I love liberals defending Att and Time Warner btw hahahaha and cnn

Specifically The neo liberal extremist resistance corporate telecommunications and media conglomerate justice warrior sure is quite the sight to see!

Really poops on classical and Moderate liberals

 

[trusso]

It's nice to see the administration do something pro-consumer for a change.

Assuming this is an unbiased, apolitical action on behalf of the American people, yes.

It's nice to see that some people in the government might actually be grown-ups (doesn't matter what administration).

 

[Braderunner]

It’s hilarious that media companies still think bundles are the future!
Their loss. I think it was Steve Jobs that said “people don’t watch channels, they watch programs”.

 

[DudeDad]

Nah, just anti-CNN.

Exactly....this is pure politics. The head of the antitrust division, last year before the election, was a law professor and said that this type of vertical merger did not raise antitrust concerns. Now that he's part of the administration, "his views" have changed. This is pure politics:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...e285c7f4512_story.html?utm_term=.8f77e30ec564

 

[scott523]

Politics/Trump aside, I’m glad that this is happening. Almost surprised it took DOJ this long to object. AT&T, once a fan, is dead to me after they bought DTV.

 

[Capeto]

I love liberals defending Att and Time Warner btw hahahaha and cnn

Specifically The neo liberal extremist resistance corporate telecommunications and media conglomerate justice warrior sure is quite the sight to see!

Really poops on classical and Moderate liberals

I don’t see anyone defending AT&T or TW

 

[heretiq]

Now if we can keep fighting for similar results regarding the imminent vote on Net Neutrality. That would be the biggest consumerism victory in memory.

Don’t hold your breath. This is about neutralizing CNN — it has nothing to do with consumer protection.

Proof: Forthcoming FCC action to gut Net Neitrality with zero objection from the administration.

 

[Zwhaler]

It's nice to see the administration do something pro-consumer for a change.

Doubt it; it's overwhelmingly likely out of spite.

 

[Greenlee]

Not surprising this happened. Trump has been very anti-CNN and will block any efforts that'll save the network.

If the DOJ succeeds is another story.

 

[CarlJ]

I love liberals defending Att and Time Warner btw hahahaha and cnn

Specifically The neo liberal extremist resistance corporate telecommunications and media conglomerate justice warrior sure is quite the sight to see!

Really poops on classical and Moderate liberals

Sure is easy to slap a bunch of labels on huge groups of people, as if every one of them had completely interchangeable views, makes it easier to write them all off and dismiss their viewpoints without having to actually engage logic and reason.

Would you take offense (or agree with me) if I insisted that all conservatives and Trump supporters are Nazi sympathizers? White nationalists? Homophobic? Xenophobic? Bigots? Is this how it works?

 

[SusanK]

A merger would not be good for consumers regardless of politics. imo

And question- how is AT&T / Time Warner not happening an anti-CNN thing? i keep hearing that, how does it relate? im not up to speed

POTUS has a wild hair about CNN.

 

[VernonDozier]

Thank you for bringing nothing new to the table I was well aware trump doesn’t care for cnn, the reliable champion for in house, world known cable news network fill of fake news.

My question that remains is how does lack of a merger going through impact cnn ?

What’s cnn want out of this?

TimeWarner has been in an "unwind" mode for a few years since it dropped AOL. TimeWarner Cable merged with Charter Communications a few years ago. Also, the TimeWarner Telecom Business is now a part of Level3/CenturyLink.

Additionally and as a result of Warner Music filing a number of lawsuits against thousands of "John Does" for sharing music in the 2000s, TimeWarner as a whole, has had serious problems attracting tech savvy, and educated talent to replace retiring employees. The industry is so behind, TimeWarner hasn't even started broadcasting in 4K yet, and from what I understand, 4K is going to need new satellites deployed. It's a big technology issue; HDTV satellites were supposed to last 15-20 years in orbit. This includes satellites used by CNN for reporters and news gathering.

AT&T is, was, and always will be a company that will have trouble with any merger or consolidation. The reason is because law students study the breakup of AT&T in law school. However, and today, AT&T is fundamentally and organizationally different than it was when they broke up in the 1980s. It's a completely different company. Heck, AT&T's HQ office is in a completely different state today. Everyone thinks AT&T in 1980 is the same company, when it isn't; and AT&T was the only company in history to have a Government-granted monopoly letter. Because of these things, AT&T will always have issues gaining favor in any business it enters into based on historical baggage.

If AT&T was known any other name, it'd probably be approved. The thing most people forget is in the 1980s, AT&T actually wanted to be broken up so it could compete in computers against IBM. IBM was using most of AT&T's patents at that time.

 

[Tapiture]

They are picking and choosing what they want to allow based in politics.... so they let this Sinclair Trump TV get a monopoly on local news but they don’t allow this? Such a corrupt administration

 

[AZ63]

BS

The DOJ wants AT&T to sell CNN. AT&T refuses so they did this.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...dition-for-att-time-warner-deal-approval.html

Guess all that “fake news” is too much for this administration’s delicate feeling.

Are you indicating by what you write here that you see no problem with this merger and that you are in favor of it going through without conditions?

 

[AHDuke99]

From a legal perspective, blocking this merger would upend a century of precedent when it comes to vertical mergers. Comcast and NBC merging was the most recent and most relevant of this type of transaction.

Whether you favor the merger or not, this is a strange move by the DOJ especially with how recent Comcast/NBC was. I know there's a new administration in charge now, but I doubt the DOJ can win this fight. We shall see.

 

[Technarchy]

Fake news has a price.

 

[2010mini]

Are you indicating by what you write here that you see no problem with this merger and that you are in favor of it going through without conditions?

Conditions. yes. BS partisan political quid pro quo. No

 

[kpeex]

Are you indicating by what you write here that you see no problem with this merger and that you are in favor of it going through without conditions?

Are you indicating by what you write here that you see no problem with partisan anti-trust conditions being imposed by a Justice Department at the behest of a president who does not like a particular type of journalism?

 

[marine0816]

This is all about #FakeNewsCNN attempting to make a Monopoly and subjecting all of us to their liberal propaganda

 

[Mac 128]

Glad to see it fall through. I loathe AT&T as a company. It’s bad enough they bought DirecTV and zero rate their content being streamed. I switched my internet over to Spectrum as I couldn’t stomach paying AT&T any more money. The pain of being an early adopter of the iPhone, being chained to AT&T for 5 years was bad enough. As soon as Apple went multi carrier I left for hills!

You think Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable, which had such a bad reputation they had to change their name) is a better option than ATT? You're in for a rude awakening.

There has to more to this story than what is currently available. It doesn't make sense the DOJ would step in like this unless they were on firm ground.

Sidebar: I'm not all impressed with ATT or Spectrum aka TW, so sue away.

Right, because the Trump administration ONLY does things when it's on firm ground?

If they block the merger they should break up Comcast too as Comcast owns NBC Universal.

And they will have to stop the Sinclair/Tribune merger, too. Once Trump realizes he risks undercutting his conservative propaganda conduit to his "deplorables" support base, he might actually back off his petty and transparent, vindictive attack on CNN via this merger. Then again, this is Trump, so probably he will as usual cut his nose off despite his cheesy orange face.
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This is all about #FakeNewsCNN attempting to make a Monopoly and subjecting all of us to their liberal propaganda

How do they allegedly subject you to their "liberal propaganda" if you don't watch it? You may not realize that modern TVs come with an amazing device called a 'remote' which allows you to watch any other channel but CNN. Give it a try.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Exactly....this is pure politics. The head of the antitrust division, last year before the election, was a law professor and said that this type of vertical merger did not raise antitrust concerns. Now that he's part of the administration, "his views" have changed. This is pure politics:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...e285c7f4512_story.html?utm_term=.8f77e30ec564

I expect the left to start pushing for this merger just because they feel that the true motive in stopping it is to harm CNN. This is the reason why rooting for your "home team" or "brand" in politics no matter the outcome is bad. It's bad in the case of Roy Moore on the conservative side and bad on the liberal side when it comes to this merger.

 

[BuffaloTF]

AT&T is just crazy huge already. Again, they’re an Wireless company AND ISP trying to be a cable company AND media creator. They bent a lot of rules to get Dish Network then turned around and played “shell games” with the FCC buying and selling smaller companies just after the settlement that seemed to go against the spirit of the previous rulings.

They aren’t trying to be a cable company... and they bought Directv.

This is solely about content, and getting ahead of the current trend of going over the top for a consumer to acquire the content and then being in a position to be the one that is able to provide it. They are looking to compete against the non-traditional players in Netflix and Amazon who go over the top today; where for a parallel, telcos didn’t react to non-traditional players in cablecos on internet and phone until it was far too late to matter. Comcast is already ahead in this regard, prepared for the shift... and it’s coming. There’s no legal precedence to stop this merger, and now this administration shot themselves in the foot to attach any conditions on it like Obama’s did with the approval of Comcast and NBCU. They’ll most assuredly win this against the DOJ because this President can’t keep his mouth shut about trying to shut down CNN and the guy he’s having bring the litigation to court is the very same one that said last year they would be approving the deal, so we know who is calling the shots here.
[doublepost=1511284045][/doublepost]

There has to more to this story than what is currently available. It doesn't make sense the DOJ would step in like this unless they were on firm ground.

Sidebar: I'm not all impressed with ATT or Spectrum aka TW, so sue away.

Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are 2 totally different companies in 2 totally different industries... and the latter no longer exists anyway since Charter already bought them several years ago.

 

[CarlJ]

... partisan anti-trust conditions being imposed by a Justice Department at the behest of a president who does not like a particular type of journalism?

A president who has worked out that he can bellow "fake news!" as a non-response to any question he doesn't like (and his base will cheer in support). He is working very hard to de-legitimize any information source that doesn't say exactly what he wants to hear. And he'd like to make it so nobody can hear any information source that he doesn't like. It's a pretty unprecedented step in US politics.