Trump to block AT&T and Time Warner deal
gettysburg — Donald Trump said he would block the AT&TTime Warner tie-up if he becomes president, arguing that such media combinations leave too much power concentrated among too few companies, including ones he says are hostile to his presidential bid and rigging the election for Hillary Clinton.
The Republican commented during a speech on Saturday in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, billed as an unveiling of Trump’s “contract with the voter” and prospective actions for his first 100 days. It was heavy on themes and policies outlined earlier in the campaign. They included building a wall on the US-Mexico border, renegotiating trade deals, repealing Obamacare and reversing the executive actions of President Barack Obama.
Trump also suggested he would favor a breakup of NBC and Comcast Corp, a merger completed in 2013. Such deals, he said, are “poison” to democracy and result in companies “telling the voters what to think and what to do.” Trump, who has called the US election rigged multiple times this month, didn’t discuss mergers among non-media companies.
On his signature proposal to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, Trump said he plans to fully fund the project through legislation he called the “End Illegal Immigration Act.” This would leave US taxpayers with the tab “with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States,” Trump’s campaign said in a handout, without providing details.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has insisted his country won’t cover any of the costs for a wall. — Bloomberg
washington — AT&T Inc’s planned takeover of Time Warner Inc. mirrors Comcast Corp’s successful acquisition of NBCUniversal, but the latest pairing faces a potentially rockier path through Washington as the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees both express suspicion of blockbuster deals.
While the Comcast-NBC deal won approval from regulators in 2011 with conditions aimed at protecting competition, AT&T faces a new landscape after a spate of high-profile merger challenges by antitrust watchdogs and a new administration months away from taking office.
“This is such a big deal in a set of markets that are already very concentrated in which there are already real concerns about consumer abuses,” said Chris Sagers, a law professor and antitrust expert at Cleveland State University. “It’s definitely going to get a very careful look.”
Millions of Subscribers
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, after acquiring DirecTV last year, is transforming the Dallas-based phone company into a media and entertainment giant. Buying Time Warner would give AT&T — already a top US supplier of pay-TV, mobile phone and home internet services — premium entertainment programming including HBO, professional basketball and the Cartoon Network to offer its millions of subscribers.
Even though the deal would combine programming and distribution rather than two direct competitors, the takeover still raises potential antitrust problems, said John Bergmayer, senior counsel at Public Knowledge, a Washington-based policy group. AT&T could make it difficult for competitors to get Time Warner programming, hoping to drive customers to its own platforms, while DirecTV could decline to carry rival programming, he said. “If you’re just a video distributor that doesn’t own programming, you just want the best programming. But if you own programming, the thumb is going to be on the scale for your stuff as opposed to that of competitors because it’s cheaper for you and you make more money off of it from ads,” Bergmayer said.