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AT&T Is in Advanced Talks to Acquire Time Warner
- chimeracoder 10y agoPre-emptive reminder (especially since not everyone will read the full article with the paywall): Time Warner Cable was spun out from Time Warner, Inc. seven years ago, and they no longer have any relationship with each other. Time Warner Cable was permitted to continue using the name under license, though they are now trying to rebrand themselves as "Spectrum" in markets where they already had a presence (such as New York City). AT&T is reportedly talking about buying Time Warner, Inc, which is a media conglomerate that owns either part or all of brands like Warner Bros, CNN, DC Comics, and Hulu.
- mbreese 10y agoAnd don't forget that Time Warner used to be part of AOL/Time Warner, of which the AOL part is now owned by Verizon. However, this potential transaction would be more similar to the Comcast purchase of NBC/Universal.
- andreasklinger 10y agoAt this point in company history/complexity they should combine PR releases about acquisitions with venn or flow charts about their ownerships.
- WorldMaker 10y agoWhich gets even wilder once you start to take in how many board members serve on multiple boards... There was a website, I forget the name of right now, that once let you play "six degrees" between any two publicly traded companies by following shared board members. If I recall the average distance was quite low.
- empath75 10y agoAnd with the growth of index funds, the stockholders are all the same, too.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ssharp 10y ago> rebrand themselves as "Spectrum" in markets where they already had a presence (such as New York City) Is that a nice way of saying they're rebranding themselves to anyone already familiar with the brand. The assumption being anyone familiar with the brand has a negative image of it :)
- lukasbarton 10y agoThis is generally the goal of any re-branding. It would be illogical to attempt re-branding against a successful, known property.
- danvasquez29 10y agoit could be that the licensing fees on the name are a significant enough drag on revenue, and/or the agreement has an expiration date and there's an expectation that the licenser won't renew the agreement. I've been a part of situations like that. You can try and get ahead of it like TW is doing now where you create the second name ahead of time and try to build up the recognition and awareness around it in advance.
- jdmichal 10y agoTime Warner Cable was bought by Charter, and the Spectrum "rebranding" is Charter's existing name for cable services. If there are continuing licensing fees for using the Time Warner name, I don't see why Charter would continue using it over its own brand name.
- mikeweiss 10y agoHmm, your forgetting that Time Warner Cable was recently purchased by Charter and that the Time Warner Cable brand will be going away for good. (replaced by charter)
- chimeracoder 10y ago> Hmm, your forgetting that Time Warner Cable was recently purchased by Charter and that the Time Warner Cable brand will be going away for good. (replaced by charter) No, it's being replaced by Spectrum (which is a brand Charter already owned). I can confirm this firsthand - when my service went out last week, I called the same number I have stored in my contacts[0], and the automated greeting introduced itself with both the old and new name. [0] The fact that I have TWC's support number in my contacts should tell you exactly what I think of their service
- brightball 10y agoCongratulations then. Charter is by far the best cable company I've ever dealt with.
- jonwachob91 10y agoI was gonna make a snarky comment about how you should move to Central Florida so you could experience Bright House Networks, then I remembered Charter bought them earlier this year...
- jdmichal 10y agoI've been seriously worried about what will happen to Bright House. I've talked to every tech that's come to my house the past year [0], and they all say that Charter has been very open about how Bright House does things, so I'm keeping hope... I know techs are not always the most knowledgeable about business direction. But I figure if four people all individually say the same thing, there might be something to it. [0] I've had quite a few, thanks to cutting through my line while gardening, and a lightning strike through the cable lines.
- vlan0 10y agoSpectrum is Charter's branding. And with Charter buying out TWC, they seem to simply be unifying the two brands under the name Spectrum.
- jdmichal 10y agoI agree that "rebranding" is a seriously uncharitable interpretation of the circumstances. Charter also bought Bright House at the same time as Time Warner Cable. They are all being brought under the Spectrum name, which was and is Charter's pre-existing name for their cable services. This is not the scenario at all that "rebranding" invokes. Especially not in the context that chimeracoder uses it. See ssharp's post [0] for an example of what the typical interpretation would be. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12762492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12762492
- mortenjorck 10y ago"And now, the HBO original series Westworld, exclusively on AT&T." (Obviously AT&T wouldn't actually do this, but there are many degrees between it and the current status quo: Timed exclusivity, bumping up pricing for non-AT&T subscribers, or even a cap-and-zero-rating scheme for AT&T's own customers.)
- baddox 10y agoWestworld, exclusively on BitTorrent.
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoTime warner owns cable internet, and probably will do whatever to stop this from happening, which is not at all an improbable outcome
- jdbernard 10y ago> Time warner owns cable internet Not true. Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are different companies. Time Warner Cable was recently acquired by Spectrum [https://www.charter.com/merger-twc https://www.charter.com/merger-twc]
- Nrsolis 10y agoI'd be really surprised if either of the next administrations allows this kind of amalgamation to happen under antitrust rules.
- emidln 10y agoEach seems open to some combination of outright bribes (I put fundraising in this category) and/or "quid pro quo" arrangements.
- adam12 10y agoNothing a speech won't solve.
- gm-conspiracy 10y agoYeah, they both seem to be real advocates of the citizenry.
- cylinder 10y agoHillary is like a NASCAR car, fully sponsored by massive corporations, and they will expect her to look the other way on antitrust. It fits in with her right wing platform anyhow
- modeless 10y agoRegulated telecoms should not be allowed to own media. If this goes through, expect the net neutrality rules to be bent beyond all recognition.
- vermontdevil 10y agoThis is what scares me. Comcast and now AT&T. What's next? Verizon to buy Viacom?
- uptown 10y agoVerizon Chipotle Exxon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo ...brought to you by YouTube, a Google company, whose parent company is Alphabet.
- spyspy 10y agoAOLTimeWarnerPepsicoViacomHalliburtonSkynetToyotaTacoBellTraderJoe's
- abakker 10y agoFaceTube
- leesalminen 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMcny_pixDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMcny_pixDw
- draz 10y agoNational Amusements (Viacom's main shareholder) isn't interested in selling to a 3rd party[1]: "To avoid any doubt, National Amusements is not willing to accept or support (i) any acquisition by a third party of either company or (ii) any transaction that would result in National Amusements surrendering its controlling position in either company or not controlling the combined company." Everything has a price, though, one can imagine. [1]http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929005731/en/Viacom-Announces-Receipt-Letter-National-Amusements http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929005731/en/Viac...
- mtgx 10y agoYou've got to be kidding me. This should absolutely not be allowed. And after buying DirecTV AT&T already used the excuse that because it paid so much money on the acquisition already, it can't invest too much in its services anymore. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160217/10525033624/att-makes-it-clear-it-bought-directv-so-it-doesnt-have-to-upgrade-lagging-networks.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160217/10525033624/att-m... Bottom line is: these consolidations always make things worse for consumers, not better.
- spinchange 10y agoLetting Verizon have Yahoo looks a lot smarter now.
- pgrote 10y agoI'll just leave this here, but it does need a little updating. It shows how little regulations have had an effect. http://i.imgur.com/US2mwgq.jpg http://i.imgur.com/US2mwgq.jpg
- mturmon 10y agoThat was my immediate reaction as well, but as pointed out nearby (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12762415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12762415), Time Warner Cable != Time Warner, Inc., so this is not a telecom merger. The regulations did have an effect in the 1980s, of course. That was back when there was only one company that did long distance service, and (earlier) you rented, not owned, your home telephone. So long-distance calls were very expensive, and a Big Deal, and you had only one or two phones in your house, because they were so expensive.
- caminante 10y ago(off topic) WSJ had a hilarious writeup last summer about the confusion [0]. Basically, the CEO of Time Warner continued to get hate mail from Time Warner Cable customers post spin-off. Time Warner Cable has since been acquired by Charter for $60B with a brand phase out. [0] http://on.wsj.com/2dVLQM5 http://on.wsj.com/2dVLQM5
- rayiner 10y agoThe regulations were never designed to prevent mergers. That's not unique to telecom--it's true across the economy.
- cfmcdonald 10y agoThey certainly were. That only changed in 1996, when the Telecom act of that year removed regulations around long-distance and local carrier mergers created by the break-up and also instructed the FCC to remove other similar barriers that were no longer "in the public interest". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_U...
- dforrestwilson1 10y agoGive credit to Obama. His FCC head, Wheeler has done a fairly good job of defending the consumer interest. Investors are already prepping for a Sprint or TMUS acquisition under a Clinton or Trump administration. Expect continued centralization of power...
- SEJeff 10y agoAnti-trust violation anyone?
- gautamdivgi 10y agowhy? - that's a media company not in the telecom business.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- fny 10y agoTime Warner Cable is a telecom company unaffiliated with Time Warner Inc
- kristopolous 10y agoSo at what point does private companies like this facilitate the role of a governing body? That should be a driving force, unless you think decree by capital is ok - in which place we need to draft up a new constitution.
- RamshackleJ 10y agoexcellent. my dream of having corporations whose influence and power exceeds that of state actors is finally materializing. no one knows how to better treat human beings than faceless corporations with a fiduciary responsibility to faceless shareholders.
- 1_2__3 10y agoI'm really looking forward to the point in the future where we look back and say, "Why did we ever think it was a good idea to allow the same company to provide the pipe, the content, and the backbone?"
- gm-conspiracy 10y agoDoes anybody think that (besides the lobbyists telling the congresscritters)?
- tragic 10y agoDevil's advocate: the British railways were privatised in the 1990s in such a way that different companies ran the tracks than the trains, and a bunch of different companies ran different trains. I must say that it would probably be better to have some single vertically integrated monopoly running everything, since in reality the government would curb its worst excesses more easily.
- eveningcoffee 10y agoI do not know how it is even slightest relevant here.
- cracell 10y agoHere's saying if you own the whole system you can optimize things to be more efficient than if you have a ton of separation between the people who run the different pieces of the system. So in the this case maybe AT&T having vertical integration is a good thing. Personally I haven't seen any positives for consumers from Comcast buying NBC Universal so I don't see how this would benefit consumers either.
- eveningcoffee 10y agoSorry, but these two systems are incomparable because you just do not run any random train on the railway. If you would like to find something that is comparable, I'll recommend to look for it related to the roads. Try to imagine a situation were single private company owns all the roads (of one region), including all the highways and local roads and has also a bus company.
- sirmike_ 10y agoRelevant: https://youtu.be/Z8zNsUTWsOc https://youtu.be/Z8zNsUTWsOc
- catshirt 10y agoi don't know shit about stocks- can someone explain why AT&T stock dropped 5% and Time Warner increased 12.5% off the news?
- charlesdm 10y agoThe acquirer (AT&T) is going to pay a boatload of $$ to acquire Time Warner. Time Warner shareholders are getting a payday, whereas AT&T shareholders will be spending money.
- catshirt 10y agook but, doesn't it ideally increase AT&T's value over time (else why would they be acquiring)? meaning, if the acquisition goes as planned, wouldn't you be better off holding onto AT&T?
- charlesdm 10y agoYes, over time. Not today. There are a lot of unknowns, because every deal usually starts from an idea, e.g. we're going to acquire X for $10bn, and that will give us $1bn in extra profits + $2bn in synergies after integration. But they need to integrate the company first to achieve those results, meaning it's unknown, meaning it can fail, meaning there's a risk premium. Half of what determines the price of a stock on the stock market is psychology. It's a herd.
- catshirt 10y agothanks! my rudimentary understanding was pretty much correct... it sounds, then, like shareholders simply don't have faith in the acquisition?
- charlesdm 10y agoIt depends. If AT&T spends a lot of cash today, the intrinsic value of a single share goes down, because there is less cash to return to that shareholder tomorrow. However, if it looks like the integration is going well, the price will increase, since indeed the company will be more valuable. In the event of a deal, Time Warner shareholders are getting a cash premium SOON. So the price goes up.
- IndianAstronaut 10y agoThis could mean zero broadband competition in many areas of the country.
- x2398dh1 10y agoHere's why this is happening...if you look at AT&T's financial statements, they are really huge on IoT (which they term monitoring devices), meaning that it has made a huge amount of money for them in terms of growth recently and is expected to do so in the next few years. They have a lot of enterprise customers, for example Tesla or other connected cars and are looking to deliver content to customers by disintermediating real estate. E.g. everyone hates Comcast because due to the fixed nature of real estate, you have no choice but to work with them to get broadband. As AT&T is able to bring wireless and cellular speeds up to the current and better than speed of broadband, Comcast will become irrelevant and AT&T will become the new Comcast. This is also likely why you have seen XFinity WiFi roll out in your local urban area this year, and pop up at the top of your network - they are trying to capture you before their inevitable downfall to Verizon and AT&T. Edit: Really, it's an ongoing battle. Nothing is inevitable.
- tekklloneer 10y agoBut, "wireless and cellular speeds" is increasingly becoming a physics problem. I'm not so optimistic as to proclaim the downfall of Comcast. I wouldn't be surprised if Comcast releases an MVNO with devices that are intended to work primarily on comcast wifi, with secondary cellular.
- bogomipz 10y agoKeep in mind the Time Warner and Charter Communications merger only closed the first week of May, 5 months ago. This is madness. I can only hope this doesn't pass regulatory scrutiny. If this does go through you will be getting your internet from either AT&T or Verizon in the United States. This is hypothetically one merger away from putting the old Ma Bell back together. I'm waiting to hear the obligatory "This will be good for consumers" comment from these folks.
- sgnelson 10y agoMa Bell is back.
- Frogolocalypse 10y agoBigger and badder.
- Frogolocalypse 10y agoIt's funny, you don't even have to make this stuff up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System You just have to see the repeat.
- safeandsound 10y agoThis will really monopolize ISP in many places including my town.