Judge Rules AT&T Can Acquire Time Warner (wsj.com)

A federal judge said Tuesday that AT&T's $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner is legal, clearing the path for a deal that gives the pay-TV provider ownership of cable channels such as HBO and CNN as well as film studio Warner Bros. From a report: U.S. District Judge Richard Leon announced his decision in a packed courtroom, ruling that antitrust enforcers at the Justice Department had not proven their case against the merger. The decision, in one of the biggest antitrust cases in decades, is a milestone victory for AT&T as it looks to reposition itself in a rapidly evolving media landscape. Its deal for Time Warner, valued at roughly $80 billion, has been pending since October 2016. The acquisition means AT&T will be the nation's top pay-TV distributor, through its ownership of DirecTV, as well as the owner of some of the country's most sought-after channels: Time Warner's Turner networks -- including CNN, TBS and TNT -- as well as HBO, the most popular U.S. premium network.

Comments

Are you fucking kidding me?

[DogDude]

Now, our business has the choice of exactly *one* shitty ISP. Fucking wonderful.

It's really difficult to run a business in the US due to our shocking lack of regulations.

Re:Are you fucking kidding me?

[Merk42]

The Invisible Hand of the Free Market will work it out of course, regulation is bad.

Re:Are you fucking kidding me?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Time Warner, the media company (owns a few TV stations), NOT Time Warner Cable, the cable company/ISP (now Spectrum). Although not as bad, it's not good either as you know the stations TW owns will disappear or royalties will go up for competing TV and streaming companies.

Re:Are you fucking kidding me?

[ShanghaiBill]

if you dont like a free market, move to cuba or canaDUH

The term "free market" is ambiguous. It can mean "free of regulation" or it can mean "free of barriers to competition". In practice, these two things are often opposites, especially with businesses that are natural monopolies or that have strong network effects.

Re:Are you fucking kidding me?

[Dragonslicer]

I usually differentiate them by using the terms "free market" and "fair market". Right-wing economics assumes that a fair market is a natural consequence of a free market; center/moderate-left economics rejects that assumption and believes that some amount of government intervention, such as antitrust regulation, is necessary to ensure a fair market.

Re:Are you fucking kidding me?

[Obfuscant]

It's the typical business model in most cities as far as cable companies go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

Thank you for your lecture. I've been involved in cable franchise issues before. You seem to know about the act of 1984, but can't remember the followup federal law that prohibits exclusive franchises. Without an exclusive franchise, there is no government-granted monopoly.

You cited the franchise ordnance for Seattly, but apparently failed to read it. Refer to 21.60.050 A. Read all the words.

Technically there's nothing there that necessitates a monopoly,

Nothing necessitates a monopoly, and nothing there GRANTS a monopoly, either.

but there's also nothing stopping a company from acquiring a non-compete clause either

Do you understand that federal law overrides local law in this area? It is against FEDERAL LAW for the city of Seattle to grant an exclusive franchise to ANY cable operator. (Since there are no franchise requirements for ISPs, that's the only franchise issue here.)

Comcast was quite notorious for doing that.

Of course Comcast would try for exclusive franchises while they were still legal. It's common sense for them. BUT -- they've been illegal for more then twenty years. The last franchise agreement between Seattle and Comcast was reached in 2017 -- and the expiring one wasn't exclusive either. The franchise ordnance you cite is explicit on this.

There are also a large number of states which have laws that attempt to hinder or outright prevent local municipalities from creating their own ISP,

This has nothing to do with cable companies, and in any case does not create a government-granted monopoly. It's irrelevant.

Personally I'm of the opinion that cities should be in charge of their own infrastructure

That's a different issue. You've claimed that Comcast has a government-granted monopoly in Seattle, and the existence of three franchised cable companies, along with federal law, proves you wrong.

and allow various companies to offer competing services to the city's residents.

I've already made friends with Google, and it tells me that there are at least 6 residential and 14 business ISPs serving Seattle, and of those 14 at least 7 are gigabit. This is what you call "no competition"?

Not a problem

[PPH]

Just have AT&T divest its wireless and broadband services as a condition of the merger.

Cancer beats freedom! (Where's the news?)

[shanen]

This calls for the more complete form of my sig:

#1 Freedom = (Meaningful + Truthful - Coerced) Choice{~5} != (Beer^4 | Speech | Trade)

You have hit on the key term "~5" in your brief comment. Zero or one choice is not a meaningful choice. Two is the starting point of freedom, but most of us actually max out around 5 choices at a time. By the time you get up to 20 or 30 choices, you're helpless and the advertisers or slick salespeople are going to pull your strings, driven by the same kind of insane profit maximization that ATT is worshiping with this EVIL merger.

Short summary: Capitalism is deader than Communism. Socialism is sick and Libertarianism is a sick fantasy. The most successful governments now appear to be Putin's style of Kleptocracy or Xi's style of slightly benevolent Dictatorship. #PresidentTweety wants to combine the worst of those two, though he also likes Kim Jong-un's style. We are so phucked. Corporate cancerism RULZ.

In religious terms: There is no gawd but profit, and ATT wants to be a YUGER prophet!

Solution? Don't hold your breath, but how about a progressive tax on corporate profits linked to market share. In your [DogDude's] situation, now that ATT is the monopolist in your market, they would have to pay the highest tax rate on all of the profits they earn there. The goal would be to encourage them to reproduce by fission, but if they don't, then the taxes will pay for (1) extensive monitoring by honest [LOL] and unbribed [ROFLMAO] government regulators (to make sure they aren't abusing their customers too badly) and for (2) research into ways to break the monopoly. (LTE is actually such a technology, though it is actually being used by the cancers that own it to prevent breaking their monopolies.)

As the saying goes

[rsilvergun]

elections have consequences. You're the first person I've heard make the point that it's hard to run a business due to a _lack_ of regulations. I'm not saying you're wrong (you're dead on actually). But I've just had the narrative of regulations making business harder pounded into my skull so long it's hard to imagine the opposite, even when I logically what you're saying.

There are no conditions

[rsilvergun]

none whatsoever. The judge is letting it proceed as is. You have more conditions buying a candy bar from 7-11 than they're getting buying a competitor.

Show up to your primaries

[rsilvergun]

folks. And then at your mid-terms. If you want change you need to start voting these bums out. Don't forget most judges are appointed. The party that appointed this judge didn't. That's why this merger sailed through with zero conditions. And it's why you'll be paying $200/mo for high speed internet in a few years.