Slashdot Mirror
AT&T Buys Time Warner For $85B. Is The Mass Media Consolidating? (reuters.com)
Though regulators may not agree, "Time Warner and AT&T reps claim this is necessary just to compete," warns Mr D from 63. Reuters reports: The tie-up of AT&T Inc and Time Warner Inc, bringing together one of the country's largest wireless and pay TV providers and cable networks like HBO, CNN and TBS, could kick off a new round of industry consolidation amid massive changes in how people watch TV... Media content companies are having an increasingly difficult time as standalone entities, creating an opportunity for telecom, satellite and cable providers to make acquisitions, analysts say. Media firms face pressure to access distribution as more younger viewers cut their cable cords and watch their favorite shows on mobile devices. Distribution companies, meanwhile, see acquiring content as a way to diversify revenue.
The deal reflects "big changes in consumption of video particularly among millennials," according to one former FCC commissioner, and the article also reports that the deal "will face serious opposition." Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey warned "we need more competition, not more consolidation... Less competition has historically resulted in fewer choices and higher prices for consumers..." And in a Saturday speech, Donald Trump called it " an example of the power structure I'm fighting...too much concentration of power in the hands of too few."
The deal reflects "big changes in consumption of video particularly among millennials," according to one former FCC commissioner, and the article also reports that the deal "will face serious opposition." Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey warned "we need more competition, not more consolidation... Less competition has historically resulted in fewer choices and higher prices for consumers..." And in a Saturday speech, Donald Trump called it " an example of the power structure I'm fighting...too much concentration of power in the hands of too few."
This is a good move by AT&Fee - makes it easier to bribe the correct political elite to keep smaller companies from competing.
Easier than providing better service if people have less options.
AT&T means American Telephone and Telegraph. Now they can change it to mean American Telephone and Television. Finally AT&T can stand for something that isn't ridiculously out of date.
Trump has already said he will oppose the merger and even wants too undo the Comcast Universal merger, though I doubt he can.
Hillary OTOH is waiting to see how much AT&T will cough up.
This has nothing to do with TWC.
I subscribe to DirecTV and have for years. I opposed the buyout from AT&T going so far as to write the FCC and my congressman. I have to say though that so far at least it hasn't been bad. I have an AT&T cell phone as that is the only major carrier that works in my area and now I can watch anything on DirecTV on my phone with no data charges. I can program my DVR from the app on my phone anywhere which is handy. I'm still leery of big conglomerates becoming monopolies but with proper oversight it could have advantages. Then again, given how lobbyists write legislation nowadays I have a feeling it's going to end badly.
That's great that you can watch DirecTV on your phone without data charges. However, this is also the reason why Antitrust laws exist. It means someone on T-Mobile and DirectV doesn't have this option and has to pay extra. This does not promote competition, nor is it beneficial for net neutrality. If this merger happens you will probably be able to watch HBO too at a discount. This merger is exactly what antitrust laws are meant to curtail. It may be convenient for the consumer in some ways, but it is anti competitive. "These Acts, first, restrict the formation of cartels and prohibit other collusive practices regarded as being in restraint of trade. Second, they restrict the mergers and acquisitions of organizations that could substantially lessen competition. Third, they prohibit the creation of a monopoly and the abuse of monopoly power."
What a dumb question. The mass media have been consolidating for DECADES.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
One of many issues to solve corruption in the country is to de-monopolize the media. When they started letting moguls buy out huge chunks of media about 30 years ago we were warned that this would happen. Now you have actors and actresses repeating talking points and the AP is the single source of most "news". Investigative journalism has become a dangerous vigilante action instead of "Press" as it was defined and discussed at the time of the founding of the USA.
Lots of problems to work on in this country, and the abuse of monopoly is one.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Master/lord/eminence.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Good thing TW cable isn't involved.. they were too busy being bought by Charter!
In 10 years : WalmartGoogleExxonAppleGoldman buys AT&TimeWarnerGeneralElectricsVerizon for $85T
Thank to all the media blunders, Trump is more powerful now than he ever was as a simple business man.
The media made candidate Trump to f*ck with the Republican primary. Then the media destroys Trump in October to ensure Hillary wins. Much of the stuff they are using to destroy him has been around for a long time, the media could have made it public during the early days of the Republican primary but then Hillary might have had a viable opponent.
this is the inevitable consequence of out of control wealth inequality. When you let the rich have all the money they've got very little left to spend it on besides conquest. This is how it was for humanity for thousands of years. The last 100 or so were a fluke brought on by the rapid advance of technology. Stop it now or you'll never see that 'fluke' again.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I currently have AT&T Uverse for television, and Time Warner for internet. Why not use one or the other for both? Because Time Warner cable is more expensive for my use case (3 receivers) and AT&T Uverse internet is too slow and more expensive than Time Warner internet. If the government approves this, we better get a viable national third party because otherwise we're doomed.
Media isn't consolidating - it's monopolizing. First they grow to a few big corporations then they specialize in a certain field of media and customers will have no choice.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Now all Restaurants are Taco Bell.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
There is probably no reason to block this merger as it would create what is clearly a massive market monopoly. AT&T and Time Warner own pretty much all the cables suitable for communication into people's houses in many areas.
Time Warner, which is what AT&T want to buy, own no cables. Time Warner Cable, which is now a separate company from Time Warner, own cables; they have already been bought by Charter Communications, who also own cables.
Pretty sure Time Warner spit out TWC (Time Warner Cable) as a separate company a year or so ago so this merger doesn't include TWC.
AT&T to Comcast: "We'll carry NBC content if you carry Time Warner content."
AT&T and Comcast to Netflix: "I guess you are just fucked, buddy."
Have gnu, will travel.
They win.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
When asked about cleaning the facilities where employees work ( the same garbage sits on the floor for years ) or if their workforce will ever get any training for the equipment they maintain, the answer is always the same:
" It's not in the budget. "
So they axe the budgets year after year, then complain when no one has any work to do. Oblivious to the fact that a budget is a prequisite for getting anything done when adding or replacing ageing hardware.
Yet when there are companies to be bought, stadium naming rights or excessive executive compensation up for consideration, there is ALWAYS a budget for that.
This upcoming Friday, thousands of folks will learn if they got " picked " to leave the company within the next month :|
Folks wonder what happened to loyalty lol
Shouldn't you have written to the FTC, not FCC? Not that that would have made the slightest bit of difference...
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Time Warner Cable is owned by Charter.
Has this newly merged corporation-person declared a gender yet? What is this entity's preferred pronoun?
We started with the generic He/She/It. Then we thought it would be easier as (S)he/It. Eventually we shortened that to Shit. Everyone seems comfortable with the appellation.
I can't deny it. As I said, even though now I benefit I feel that eventually it will still end badly.
Actually, it was the FTC. But as you say it hardly mattered, it could just as well been the FBI, NSA or EPA for all the fucking difference it made. They donate millions of dollars to get what they need done.
because of tech. Airplanes and Machine Guns and Bombs and such. A good chuck of the reasons for the Great Depression were tech, especially when you strip away the esoteric monetary policy explanations.
Root cause is still tech changes happening too fast for society to adjust. Least as far as I can tell.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Believe it or not, Comcast was a MAJOR upgrade from AT&T for me.
I used to have the @Home cable modem service and was quite pleased with it. This is before the days of Doxis and there was no throttling. My cable modem was capable of 10Mbps up and 10Mbps down. Later, @Home reduced it to 10Mbps down and 1Mbps up. Times were still good since that was an insane amount of bandwidth.
Then AT&T bought out @Home and switched it to AT&T Broadband Internet (ATTBI). They decided to reduce the upstream bandwidth to 128Kbps, but they aggregated all of the users through the SAME 128Kbps pipe. As a result, on the best of days I saw 40% packet loss with ping. My old 28.8Kbps modem was faster than my cable modem. It was like this for 9 months. Technical support was absolutely useless. There were newspaper articles about it but still the incompetence continued.
When Comcast took over things improved drastically. I will go out of my way to avoid anything to do with AT&T. While Comcast has a lot of problems, it is nothing like what I experienced with AT&T. AT&T was absolute shit.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
The world's two worst customer service organizations will merge creating something truly evil. Just say no.
Organization? You must be joking..
This will be approved, and history will show it to have been a very bad thing for consumers. Bigly. Yuge-ly. One of the worst regulatory mistakes ever.