A terrible merger

The AT&T-Time Warner deal is bad for consumers, Michael Hiltzik writes.

In the aftermath of a federal judge’s approval Tuesday of the megamerger between AT&T and Time Warner, you’ll be reading about how this deal will vastly remake the entertainment and information landscape, most likely at consumers’ expense.

That take is absolutely true. What’s being overstated, however, is that this deal is unique. It’s not. Its template was laid out in 2011 by what was then the biggest such “vertical” merger in the information and entertainment sectors: Comcast’s $30-billion takeover of NBCUniversal.

That earlier deal united a big Internet service provider with a big purveyor of content. It was pitched as bringing huge benefits to the public — improved cable TV and internet technology, more innovative TV programming, lower prices.

Have you seen any of that since 2011? Me neither.

Identical claims for consumer benefits have been made for all the media mega-mergers of the last two decades, encompassing deals involving Walt Disney Co., ABC, Viacom, CBS, Time, Warner Bros., CNN and AOL, among other companies. None of them