10 ms·

AT&T reaches deal to buy Time Warner for more than $80B

343 points by danm07 10y ago

samfisher83 10y ago
Why not just let AT&T and Verizon get back together and lets get back the original AT&T. How is this good for the country? They own directv. They own all these local sports networks. I hope the government regulators take a strong look at this. Here is list of assets they own: New Line Cinema, Home Box Office, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, Warner Bros., CNN, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, DC Comics, Warner Bros. Animation, Castle Rock Entertainment, Cartoon Network Studios, Esporte Interativo, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment That is a lot of content.
- eternalban 10y ago
  I am sure our public servants were paid handsomely to take a look at it. (sorry hn, was that snarky?)
  - icebraining 10y ago
    The public servants didn't have a say yet. And last year they did block Comcast's merger with Time Warner, as well as AT&T's purchase of T-mobile in 2011.
    - eternalban 10y ago
      Fair enough. And more seriously, we must revisit this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
    - jonwachob91 10y ago
      T-Mobil is an infrastructure company. Time Warner is a content company. You can't compare the regulators blocking an infrastructure company (AT&T) from purchasing another infrastructure company (T-Mobile) to a infrastructure company (AT&T) acquiring a content company (Time Warner).
      - icebraining 10y ago
        I'm not saying they are comparable; I'm pointing out that regulators are willing to block mergers and purchases, unlike the implied claim that they'll rubber stamp anything as long as they've been paid off.
        jessedhillon 10y ago
        As if the people who see bribes everywhere won't just claim them that the right people just weren't bribed, or that the competition's bribes were more convincing. Once bribery is assumed without evidence, it explains everything.
    - vitus 10y ago
      Hm. In investigating, I saw that Comcast's intended merger was with TWC, which makes a difference (as both are infrastructure companies).
    - shmerl 10y ago
      They approved NBC purchase by Comcast. A very bad decision, which AT&T will now use as a precedent to claim they aren't any worse.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- danm07 10y ago
  I don't think the regulators have approved it yet. I hope they don't.
  - orbitur 10y ago
    Comcast already bought NBC Universal. Train has left the station.
- flylib 10y ago
  they have incentives to not license it only to themselves or they will see huge drop in viewers across all assets, not that worried
- smokeyj 10y ago
  At the same time.. Who cares? all these channels could disappear and many cord cutters wouldn't notice. I wouldn't. There's funny pictures online with text captions. That seems to be catching on just fine.
  - appleflaxen 10y ago
    because people who do watch those pictures would end up paying more than they should. i.e. - it's market-distorting
  - justabystander 10y ago
    Vertical integration like this is one of the major reasons for the promotion of bandwidth caps. Which certainly do affect cord cutters. It can also results in reduced network investments and higher traffic congestion. It can also cause digital licensing shenanigans, like excessively high licensing fees, and even more platform fragmentation.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
muninn_ 10y ago
Wow. That's a lot of money. And not good for competition.
- xophishox 10y ago
  When i read yesterday about the merger i was pretty shocked that the FCC was allowing it to go through.
  - mashlol 10y ago
    Yeah it's very surprising, it really does stifle competition and can only be a bad thing for consumers in the end.
  - envy2 10y ago
    None of the regulators have signed off on this yet. I'd expect heavy regulatory scrutiny, and the deal may well yet be scuttled as a result.
    - op00to 10y ago
      Why would they scuttle it? They'll give a few token concessions and continue to screw consumers. The only way to win in this game is to invest in these monopolies.
      - walterbell 10y ago
        Look into why T-Mobile merger was cancelled: industry pushback.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        "In April 2015, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Comcast and Time Warner in a bid to halt the merger, arguing that the merger would reduce the level of competition in the cable television and broadband internet industries. On April 24, 2015, Comcast officially announced that it had called off the merger." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_Time_Warner_Cable_by_Comcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_Time_War...
o0-0o 10y ago
Trump said today, in a speech in Gettysburg, PA, that if he becomes president, he will work to block this transaction because it consolidates too much power.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Yes, no conflict of interest there at all. He's right, but for the the wrong reasons and motivations.
  - sb057 10y ago
    How would a real estate investor have a conflict of interest in regards to a telecom merger? If you want to talk about a conflict of interest in presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton has received at least a combined $1,564,708 in political contributions from AT&T and Time Warner. Additionally, AT&T's senior executive Vice President James Cicconi has endorsed Clinton.
    - jrockway 10y ago
      Everyone has endorsed Clinton.
      - koolba 10y ago
        > Everyone has endorsed Clinton. Not everyone :D https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12728645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12728645
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      This is not a telecom merger. Trump has many more businesses than just real-estate and his content competes with the content factory that AT&T wishes to procure (Time Warner, not time warner Cable the ISP). Though he's already had a run-in with TWC (not involved in this deal but I highly doubt that would matter much to Trump). http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/lat-hh16-donald-trump-time-warner-cable-photo.html http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/lat-hh16-donald-...
denzil_correa 10y ago
Dupe : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769641 Edit : The WSJ submission also has more details and some story too. This one has just one line.
- noobermin 10y ago
  On that post, there is also a dupe calling linking to this article...
- embiggen 10y ago
  Not a dupe. Denzil is the poster of the competing submission, and its time stamp is later than this one.
rosser 10y ago
Regulatory capture is truly a wonder to behold.
- dkural 10y ago
  Regulators have not approved it.
echelon 10y ago
This is at face value so absolutely insane, I wonder what alternate reality I woke up in today. This is horrible for competition! Holy effing fuck. What is going on with our regulators? The telecoms are reconsolidating: http://online.wsj.com/media/attmap03282011.jpg http://online.wsj.com/media/attmap03282011.jpg The service providers are consolidating https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-BQ192_cablec_G_20140221130703.jpg https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-BQ192_cablec_G... Biomedical http://www.pm360online.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/History-of-BioPharma-Consolidation_1.jpg http://www.pm360online.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Histor... It goes on and on. At this point I fully expect us all to one day do our banking at Google, receive our medical care from AT&T, and get all of our meals and groceries from Taco Bell. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcE4OvnqAY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcE4OvnqAY
- profquail 10y ago
  > What is going on with our regulators? AT&T has reached an agreement to buy TWC. The deal has been neither reviewed nor approved by regulators (yet).
  - jrockway 10y ago
    Did I misread something? How is TWC involved?
  - echelon 10y ago
    > AT&T has reached an agreement to buy TWC. The deal has been neither reviewed nor approved by regulators (yet). Then let me ask something else. What is going on with the boards of these two companies? Do they think this will fly? I believe they certainly must. I assume that the people in charge of these companies are rational and experienced, and that they considered the regulatory hurdles before moving forward with this deal. They must think they can get away with this plan, otherwise why bother with the trouble and expense of setting it up in the first place?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
mathgeek 10y ago
After allowing Comcast to acquire NBC Universal, is there really any expectation that this will be blocked?
- walterbell 10y ago
  Comcast has been blocked from other acquisitions, e.g. Time Warner Cable, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9429035#9429514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9429035#9429514
  - jonwachob91 10y ago
    Time Warner Cable / Comcast was an infrastructure acquisition. Comcast already has infrastructure. Time Warner (not Time Warner Cable) / AT&T is a content acquisition. AT&T doesn't really have content. That is an apples to oranges comparison.
    - walterbell 10y ago
      Comcast had content via NBC Universal.
      - jonwachob91 10y ago
        Comcast still has content via NBCUniversal. Comcast didn't try to buy Time Warner, they tried to buy Time Warner Cable. Two different companies (as has been mentioned in probably 1/3 of the comments on this thread).
        walterbell 10y ago
        The combination of Comcast and TWC would have been: infrastructure + content + infrastructure allowing the content portion of Comcast to have _more_ infrastructure leverage over competing content providers. Those competing content providers lobbied against the merger. Competing content providers (not already owned by an infrastructure company) may also lobby against this AT&T merger with Warner Bros & HBO.
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
Note that this is AT&T buying Time Warner the content company [1], not Time Warner Cable the ISP [2]. It's analogous to Comcast's NBC Universal acquisition [3]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner_Cable https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner_Cable [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal_by_Comcast https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal...
- fred_is_fred 10y ago
  Also note that Time Warner Cable no longer exists, it was bought by Charter Communications with the deal finalized this year.
  - georgemcbay 10y ago
    ... and one of the first things Charter (now Spectrum, with the addition of Time Warner Cable) did was raise rates across the board and cancel the MAXX upgrades that Time Warner had been rolling out in a lot of areas... after spending months "convincing" regulators that the merger would not harm the consumer (lol). The telecommunication "market" in the US is so amazingly consumer hostile right now, getting worse and worse and it is looking increasingly like feint efforts like Google Fiber won't really do anything to change it outside of a few very small markets. But there's nothing the consumer can do in protest because there are no options.
    - solotronics 10y ago
      they also told us (TWC engineers) that there would be "absolutely no job cuts from the merger" well they have started forcing people to relocate or take severance as a way to cut work force stealthily.
- noobermin 10y ago
  This is a very important distinction. To aid the lazy, the wiki articles JumpCrisscross link state that Time Warner Cable is a spin off from Time Warner in 2009 and they are independent of each other today, despite still sharing part of a name. Therefore, this doesn't really appear to be an actual consolidation. EDIT: as drieddust notes, it is vertical integration of sorts.
Spooky23 10y ago
I guess the wireless service will continue to go to shit.
danm07 10y ago
Looks like regulators are on the fence about this transaction: "Regulators have indicated misgivings about the prior Comcast-NBCU deal—in particular, whether obligations placed on Comcast were tough enough and enforceable—so it is unclear if they will be willing to bless another such merger. At the very least, former regulatory officials say there could be significant conditions placed on the combination." WSJ
jrockway 10y ago
Trump also said that he can grab people's private parts without retribution. Unfortunately, that trumps whatever he thinks about ISPs owning content providers. Maybe his charity wants to buy Time Warner. (Edit: people are now going around downvoting my other comments because of this one. Good work guys, Emperor Trump has noticed your efforts!)
- brink 10y ago
  How does a crass comment from 11 years ago reflect at all about what he said about a corporate power consolidation at a speech today?
  - jrockway 10y ago
    Two possibilities: 1) He lies every time he opens his mouth, so I wouldn't take what he says at a rally (or a hot mic) at face value. 2) They won't consult him for his opinions on mergers and acquisitions when he's serving his prison sentence for sexual assault. Finally, if past elections are any indication, I would not recommend voting for someone based on one issue. Campaign promises are more difficult to implement than candidates imagine. If you like Trump, by all means vote for him, but don't vote for him over AT&T and Time Warner.
    - byuu 10y ago
      > Campaign promises are more difficult to implement than candidates imagine. Oh, the candidates know it damn well. But they know the electorate doesn't know it. So they lie their asses off because it's how you win when all the other candidates are lying their asses off. Bernie supporters actually believed he could usher in universal healthcare, free college, etc. Trump supporters think he's going to build a giant wall. Johnson supporters think they're going to get legalized weed in the entire US. As if the presidency was a monarchy and the legislative and judicial branches didn't exist. (Clinton supporters ... well they're just terrified of Trump winning.) We don't have the candidates we need, but we sure have the candidates we deserve.
      - 10y ago
dimva 10y ago
Hmmmm.... looks like there was some insider trading. https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1477162642408&chddm=1173&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=NYSE:T&cmptdms=0&q=NYSE:TWX&ntsp=0&ei=Y7YLWLHLNYW8e9WgkrAO https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...
- twoodfin 10y ago
  What makes you so sure? For one thing, it's perfectly legal for non-insiders to figure out which way the wind is blowing on a deal and make a bet in that direction.
- marincounty 10y ago
  "Give out a little taste to you friends. Call blah, blah, blah, at the Wall Street journal. Tell them Blue Horse Shoe loves Acacott Steel." I watched that, and Platoon through college so many times. The duality of good/evil in those movies seemed to sum up life in the ninties. I eventually popped a mental gasket thinking about life/death too much though. The only real money my deceased father(13 years ago) made in the market was at a tense family dinner, which my sisters father in-law, told my father to invest in his companies stock. He was the first rich guy who told the truth, after a few bottles of red wine. He told my father, "they all do it." That was really the only time he came out ahead with the stock market. From then on, he thought he was a Series 7 experienced Stock Advisor. My father gave me really bad advice. He once told me to put all my money in Zapp Bicycles. I got out of college, which he thought was a waste of time. He never paid a penny for my schooling, and I did agree that most of it was a joke. Anyways, out of college, I made $20 grand fixing up old cars. It was a lot of money back in my world. I was just about to put it all on Zapp. My father bought a Zapp. It was his way of avoiding a DUI. He used it to go to his favorite bar in the avenues on it. I went over to his house to ride the Zapp. I knew they just didn't do it right. It was too heavy. I didn't let it all ride on Zapp. A week later their stock went down, and stayed there. Even though I had a degree in business, knew about diversification; there was a part of me who wanted to follow my dad's advice. (Poor kids--don't do this. Rich kids get good advice about money. Poor kids don't.) I still have 11 grand of that money. I would have thought inflation would have eaten it all up. All along, all I really wanted was enough money to buy a Harley, and ride across America. Now, I'm worried about theft. I'm worried about going by myself. I wanted to meet the perfect Midwestern girl. Over the years, I realized there's no perfect Midwestern girl. A little off topic?
szx 10y ago
Slightly OT: The Time Warner Cable (TWC) vs. Time Warner confusion in this thread and elsewhere will luckily be resolved soon as the TWC brand is being phased out in favor of Spectrum [1]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-17/so-long-time-warner-cable-charter-to-retire-much-maligned-brand https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-17/so-long-t...
droithomme 10y ago
How does AT&T even have $80B. They have been irrelevant for many years. On the flip side I guess it makes sense that a big media company is on the rails. For media companies it's hard to make a living in the new economy. (Virtually) no one buys magazines these days so Time is irrelevant. And most people are pirates so being a movie studio is likewise a dead end vocation. They're lucky to find someone that wants to buy them. The price is absolutely enormous. Again, where on earth does AT&T have this sort of money.
- muninn_ 10y ago
  Wait what do you mean irrelevant? They are a gigantic corporation with a revenue of nearly $150 billion/year.
- neom 10y ago
  Irrelevant for many years? Uhm: http://as-rank.caida.org/?mode0=as-info&mode1=as-table&as=7018 http://as-rank.caida.org/?mode0=as-info&mode1=as-table&as=70...
- lagadu 10y ago
  > (Virtually) no one > And most people are pirates I'm fairly confident you have a very unrealistic/limited/biased view of reality: most people are not pirates. The virtually extinct magazines can still be seen on millions of points of sale every day around the world and if they're there with new stocks and content every day/week/month then they're still very widely sold. AT&T is a $226b corporation and time warner productions is a $73b who just got bought for 80.
- gniv 10y ago
  AT&T the holding company is not the AT&T company you imagine. See here for what makes up the current AT&T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Corporate_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Corporate_structure I think most of the money is made by what used to be called SBC, which has very lucrative landlines in the south; plus the mobile carrier business.
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
First AOL now ATT. Why are the TW execs always looking to sell out a perfectly viable company.
neom 10y ago
This is sorta like Verizon buying yahoo. This is not sorta like centurylink buying savvis.
voodootrucker 10y ago
That's $7000 per hostage... I mean customer.
m0atz 10y ago
How the fuck do you buy something for $80bn with a plan to make a profit? If only I knew, I'd have gone to my local NatWest and asked for a loan.
oli5679 10y ago
Seems to be a negative response to this deal re competitive implications. Can someone outline their theory of harm? I do some work in competition economics but am not American and don't know a lot about either company?
jasode 10y ago
Based on the top upvoted comment from echelon in this thread, there seems to be widespread confusion about Time Warner the media company. Maybe a better way to think of it: AT&T is buying HBO, TBS, and Warner Bros.[1] (If you squint a certain way and look at Yahoo as a "media company"... the AT&T acquisition of HBO+TBS+WB is somewhat a parallel industry move to Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo.[2]) AT&T is not buying the other company with the similar name Time Warner Cable. Yes, that other company owns some internet pipes (ISPs) but it is not involved in this transaction. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Divisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Divisions [2]https://www.fastcompany.com/3061232/platform-wars/with-yahoo-acquisition-verizon-hopes-to-grow-its-new-media-empire https://www.fastcompany.com/3061232/platform-wars/with-yahoo...
- shp0ngle 10y ago
  Also, part of Warner Bros is DC comics, owners of Batman and Superman and other DC intellectual property.
  - djsumdog 10y ago
    This just makes me think about AOL/TimeWarner. So which giant will turn into a failing company? AT&T or Time Warner? I wish Fucked Company was still around. I want to know who people would bet against.
zyngaro 10y ago
The same thing is happening here in France where a major telco provider became also a major mass media player through acquisitions. I am not very comfortable with this trend especially regarding net neutrality, privacy and public opinion influence power.
circa 10y ago
Ah, wonderful news. Glad to hear this won't have any effect on the wonderful rollout of Spectrum I keep hearing about.
justinsingh 10y ago
Can they afford this acquisition? Seems huge.
- pawnedrabbit 10y ago
  Don't go by the number of $ to the valuations. They are rarely accurate.
Ericson2314 10y ago
May they be the second coming of AOL
zkhalique 10y ago
Oh great, more Telco consolidation. First the banks are too big to fail after the Great COnsolidation of the 90s and 2000s, and now this. So we can have more arguments about Title I and Title II and more arguments about the illusion of choice when we have only two choices ... DT or HC, Title I or Title II...
- fred_is_fred 10y ago
  TW is not a Telco. It's a content company.
dzink 10y ago
Content is king and now the telcos are likely fighting content rates renegotiations by acquiring content companies like TW. US cable subscription business was nearly 92 million households a few years ago. Now that Netflix has crossed more than half of that and they are competing with original content, the telcos have something to worry about. Comcast can do the same with NBCUniversal, the other telcos are left with low negotiation power come channel distribution deal time. The big BIG aspect of this deal is the number of top consumer-demanded channels run by Turner. ESPN (non-Turner) is the most expensive, but then TBS, TNT, and CNN, and Cartoon Network are near the top on the price list for cable distributors. In some plans they define upper-level subscription tiers. This acquisition seems good for competition - Comcast and AT&T would be less inclined to limit access to cable channels to their subscribers only if the other party has something they want.
soham 10y ago
Comcast <==> NBC Universal Verizon <==> Yahoo AT&T <==> Time Warner <<Pipes>> <==> <<Content>>
- shmerl 10y ago
  All of that is bad.
  - TDL 10y ago
    Why?
    - shmerl 10y ago
      They are huge ISPs. When a crooked huge ISP owns media services, they can abuse their ownership of the physical network to disadvantage competing services which are routed through their network. And they are already doing it!
shmerl 10y ago
This should be simply illegal. A monstrous merger of massive network operator, and huge media company will create an abusive monopolist of gigantic proportions. I.e. they'll use their network to disadvantage competing media (they already do it, violating Net Neutrality with zero rating of their own video services). So, if they already do it, do you think becoming bigger they'll improve? It's an antitrust 101, but somehow this isn't banned outright.
scalio 10y ago
Tell me again how finding 10B to go to Mars is impossible? This is a satirical comment, trying to make a point: Depending on the context, the same amount of money can be considered anything from huge to tiny. It seems ridiculous to me that hundreds of billions routinely get pushed around in business mergers or military deals, where no one blinks an eye, but scraping together a tenth of that to do something actually interesting and/or useful is a major undertaking. Just goes to show how unfairly balanced this system is (regardless of which way it's balanced; some things have it easier than others).
shadykiller 10y ago
Time Warner stock price closed at 89$ on Friday. The deal if 109$ per share. Newbie trader question - If if buy the shares for time warner on monday morning, would I be able to make profit ?
- TDL 10y ago
  Assuming the price doesn't open at 109, maybe. The deal might still fail for a variety of reasons and then you are stuck with the stock and may or may not have to take a loss. If you are new to trading, I would say step away from event driven trading strategies. Understand trading first before playing this approach.
prirun 10y ago
The government spent untold amounts of money breaking up AT&T, then allows them to continue merging into a bigger company than ever. AT&T and Time Warner both suck. Their goal isn't to produce great products, it's to protect and expand their monopolies. One of the reasons most of us have only 2 choices for Internet service is that AT&T and the former TWC pay local community governments in exchange for exclusive access to the community. And if a community tries to "do their own thing", they get sued. Google is trying or considering coming to Louisville and the first thing AT&T did was sue them. I know this deal is about the TWC media company, but AT&T's behavior in other areas is still relevant.

343 points by danm07 10y ago

Why not just let AT&T and Verizon get back together and lets get back the original AT&T. How is this good for the country? They own directv. They own all these local sports networks. I hope the government regulators take a strong look at this. Here is list of assets they own: New Line Cinema, Home Box Office, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, Warner Bros., CNN, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, DC Comics, Warner Bros. Animation, Castle Rock Entertainment, Cartoon Network Studios, Esporte Interativo, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment That is a lot of content.

eternalban 10y ago
I am sure our public servants were paid handsomely to take a look at it. (sorry hn, was that snarky?)
- icebraining 10y ago
  The public servants didn't have a say yet. And last year they did block Comcast's merger with Time Warner, as well as AT&T's purchase of T-mobile in 2011.
  - eternalban 10y ago
    Fair enough. And more seriously, we must revisit this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
  - jonwachob91 10y ago
    T-Mobil is an infrastructure company. Time Warner is a content company. You can't compare the regulators blocking an infrastructure company (AT&T) from purchasing another infrastructure company (T-Mobile) to a infrastructure company (AT&T) acquiring a content company (Time Warner).
    - icebraining 10y ago
      I'm not saying they are comparable; I'm pointing out that regulators are willing to block mergers and purchases, unlike the implied claim that they'll rubber stamp anything as long as they've been paid off.
      - jessedhillon 10y ago
        As if the people who see bribes everywhere won't just claim them that the right people just weren't bribed, or that the competition's bribes were more convincing. Once bribery is assumed without evidence, it explains everything.
  - vitus 10y ago
    Hm. In investigating, I saw that Comcast's intended merger was with TWC, which makes a difference (as both are infrastructure companies).
  - shmerl 10y ago
    They approved NBC purchase by Comcast. A very bad decision, which AT&T will now use as a precedent to claim they aren't any worse.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
danm07 10y ago
I don't think the regulators have approved it yet. I hope they don't.
- orbitur 10y ago
  Comcast already bought NBC Universal. Train has left the station.
flylib 10y ago
they have incentives to not license it only to themselves or they will see huge drop in viewers across all assets, not that worried
smokeyj 10y ago
At the same time.. Who cares? all these channels could disappear and many cord cutters wouldn't notice. I wouldn't. There's funny pictures online with text captions. That seems to be catching on just fine.
- appleflaxen 10y ago
  because people who do watch those pictures would end up paying more than they should. i.e. - it's market-distorting
- justabystander 10y ago
  Vertical integration like this is one of the major reasons for the promotion of bandwidth caps. Which certainly do affect cord cutters. It can also results in reduced network investments and higher traffic congestion. It can also cause digital licensing shenanigans, like excessively high licensing fees, and even more platform fragmentation.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

muninn_ 10y ago

Wow. That's a lot of money. And not good for competition.

xophishox 10y ago
When i read yesterday about the merger i was pretty shocked that the FCC was allowing it to go through.
- mashlol 10y ago
  Yeah it's very surprising, it really does stifle competition and can only be a bad thing for consumers in the end.
- envy2 10y ago
  None of the regulators have signed off on this yet. I'd expect heavy regulatory scrutiny, and the deal may well yet be scuttled as a result.
  - op00to 10y ago
    Why would they scuttle it? They'll give a few token concessions and continue to screw consumers. The only way to win in this game is to invest in these monopolies.
    - walterbell 10y ago
      Look into why T-Mobile merger was cancelled: industry pushback.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      "In April 2015, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Comcast and Time Warner in a bid to halt the merger, arguing that the merger would reduce the level of competition in the cable television and broadband internet industries. On April 24, 2015, Comcast officially announced that it had called off the merger." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_Time_Warner_Cable_by_Comcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_Time_War...

o0-0o 10y ago

Trump said today, in a speech in Gettysburg, PA, that if he becomes president, he will work to block this transaction because it consolidates too much power.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 10y ago
Yes, no conflict of interest there at all. He's right, but for the the wrong reasons and motivations.
- sb057 10y ago
  How would a real estate investor have a conflict of interest in regards to a telecom merger? If you want to talk about a conflict of interest in presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton has received at least a combined $1,564,708 in political contributions from AT&T and Time Warner. Additionally, AT&T's senior executive Vice President James Cicconi has endorsed Clinton.
  - jrockway 10y ago
    Everyone has endorsed Clinton.
    - koolba 10y ago
      > Everyone has endorsed Clinton. Not everyone :D https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12728645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12728645
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    This is not a telecom merger. Trump has many more businesses than just real-estate and his content competes with the content factory that AT&T wishes to procure (Time Warner, not time warner Cable the ISP). Though he's already had a run-in with TWC (not involved in this deal but I highly doubt that would matter much to Trump). http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/lat-hh16-donald-trump-time-warner-cable-photo.html http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/lat-hh16-donald-...

denzil_correa 10y ago

Dupe : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769641 Edit : The WSJ submission also has more details and some story too. This one has just one line.

noobermin 10y ago
On that post, there is also a dupe calling linking to this article...
embiggen 10y ago
Not a dupe. Denzil is the poster of the competing submission, and its time stamp is later than this one.

rosser 10y ago

Regulatory capture is truly a wonder to behold.

dkural 10y ago
Regulators have not approved it.

echelon 10y ago

This is at face value so absolutely insane, I wonder what alternate reality I woke up in today. This is horrible for competition! Holy effing fuck. What is going on with our regulators? The telecoms are reconsolidating: http://online.wsj.com/media/attmap03282011.jpg http://online.wsj.com/media/attmap03282011.jpg The service providers are consolidating https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-BQ192_cablec_G_20140221130703.jpg https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-BQ192_cablec_G... Biomedical http://www.pm360online.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/History-of-BioPharma-Consolidation_1.jpg http://www.pm360online.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Histor... It goes on and on. At this point I fully expect us all to one day do our banking at Google, receive our medical care from AT&T, and get all of our meals and groceries from Taco Bell. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcE4OvnqAY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcE4OvnqAY

profquail 10y ago
> What is going on with our regulators? AT&T has reached an agreement to buy TWC. The deal has been neither reviewed nor approved by regulators (yet).
- jrockway 10y ago
  Did I misread something? How is TWC involved?
- echelon 10y ago
  > AT&T has reached an agreement to buy TWC. The deal has been neither reviewed nor approved by regulators (yet). Then let me ask something else. What is going on with the boards of these two companies? Do they think this will fly? I believe they certainly must. I assume that the people in charge of these companies are rational and experienced, and that they considered the regulatory hurdles before moving forward with this deal. They must think they can get away with this plan, otherwise why bother with the trouble and expense of setting it up in the first place?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

mathgeek 10y ago

After allowing Comcast to acquire NBC Universal, is there really any expectation that this will be blocked?

walterbell 10y ago
Comcast has been blocked from other acquisitions, e.g. Time Warner Cable, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9429035#9429514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9429035#9429514
- jonwachob91 10y ago
  Time Warner Cable / Comcast was an infrastructure acquisition. Comcast already has infrastructure. Time Warner (not Time Warner Cable) / AT&T is a content acquisition. AT&T doesn't really have content. That is an apples to oranges comparison.
  - walterbell 10y ago
    Comcast had content via NBC Universal.
    - jonwachob91 10y ago
      Comcast still has content via NBCUniversal. Comcast didn't try to buy Time Warner, they tried to buy Time Warner Cable. Two different companies (as has been mentioned in probably 1/3 of the comments on this thread).
      - walterbell 10y ago
        The combination of Comcast and TWC would have been: infrastructure + content + infrastructure allowing the content portion of Comcast to have _more_ infrastructure leverage over competing content providers. Those competing content providers lobbied against the merger. Competing content providers (not already owned by an infrastructure company) may also lobby against this AT&T merger with Warner Bros & HBO.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

Note that this is AT&T buying Time Warner the content company [1], not Time Warner Cable the ISP [2]. It's analogous to Comcast's NBC Universal acquisition [3]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner_Cable https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner_Cable [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal_by_Comcast https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal...

fred_is_fred 10y ago
Also note that Time Warner Cable no longer exists, it was bought by Charter Communications with the deal finalized this year.
- georgemcbay 10y ago
  ... and one of the first things Charter (now Spectrum, with the addition of Time Warner Cable) did was raise rates across the board and cancel the MAXX upgrades that Time Warner had been rolling out in a lot of areas... after spending months "convincing" regulators that the merger would not harm the consumer (lol). The telecommunication "market" in the US is so amazingly consumer hostile right now, getting worse and worse and it is looking increasingly like feint efforts like Google Fiber won't really do anything to change it outside of a few very small markets. But there's nothing the consumer can do in protest because there are no options.
  - solotronics 10y ago
    they also told us (TWC engineers) that there would be "absolutely no job cuts from the merger" well they have started forcing people to relocate or take severance as a way to cut work force stealthily.
noobermin 10y ago
This is a very important distinction. To aid the lazy, the wiki articles JumpCrisscross link state that Time Warner Cable is a spin off from Time Warner in 2009 and they are independent of each other today, despite still sharing part of a name. Therefore, this doesn't really appear to be an actual consolidation. EDIT: as drieddust notes, it is vertical integration of sorts.

Spooky23 10y ago

I guess the wireless service will continue to go to shit.

danm07 10y ago

Looks like regulators are on the fence about this transaction: "Regulators have indicated misgivings about the prior Comcast-NBCU deal—in particular, whether obligations placed on Comcast were tough enough and enforceable—so it is unclear if they will be willing to bless another such merger. At the very least, former regulatory officials say there could be significant conditions placed on the combination." WSJ

jrockway 10y ago

Trump also said that he can grab people's private parts without retribution. Unfortunately, that trumps whatever he thinks about ISPs owning content providers. Maybe his charity wants to buy Time Warner. (Edit: people are now going around downvoting my other comments because of this one. Good work guys, Emperor Trump has noticed your efforts!)

brink 10y ago
How does a crass comment from 11 years ago reflect at all about what he said about a corporate power consolidation at a speech today?
- jrockway 10y ago
  Two possibilities: 1) He lies every time he opens his mouth, so I wouldn't take what he says at a rally (or a hot mic) at face value. 2) They won't consult him for his opinions on mergers and acquisitions when he's serving his prison sentence for sexual assault. Finally, if past elections are any indication, I would not recommend voting for someone based on one issue. Campaign promises are more difficult to implement than candidates imagine. If you like Trump, by all means vote for him, but don't vote for him over AT&T and Time Warner.
  - byuu 10y ago
    > Campaign promises are more difficult to implement than candidates imagine. Oh, the candidates know it damn well. But they know the electorate doesn't know it. So they lie their asses off because it's how you win when all the other candidates are lying their asses off. Bernie supporters actually believed he could usher in universal healthcare, free college, etc. Trump supporters think he's going to build a giant wall. Johnson supporters think they're going to get legalized weed in the entire US. As if the presidency was a monarchy and the legislative and judicial branches didn't exist. (Clinton supporters ... well they're just terrified of Trump winning.) We don't have the candidates we need, but we sure have the candidates we deserve.
    - 10y ago

dimva 10y ago

Hmmmm.... looks like there was some insider trading. https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Logarithmic&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1477162642408&chddm=1173&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=NYSE:T&cmptdms=0&q=NYSE:TWX&ntsp=0&ei=Y7YLWLHLNYW8e9WgkrAO https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...

twoodfin 10y ago
What makes you so sure? For one thing, it's perfectly legal for non-insiders to figure out which way the wind is blowing on a deal and make a bet in that direction.
marincounty 10y ago
"Give out a little taste to you friends. Call blah, blah, blah, at the Wall Street journal. Tell them Blue Horse Shoe loves Acacott Steel." I watched that, and Platoon through college so many times. The duality of good/evil in those movies seemed to sum up life in the ninties. I eventually popped a mental gasket thinking about life/death too much though. The only real money my deceased father(13 years ago) made in the market was at a tense family dinner, which my sisters father in-law, told my father to invest in his companies stock. He was the first rich guy who told the truth, after a few bottles of red wine. He told my father, "they all do it." That was really the only time he came out ahead with the stock market. From then on, he thought he was a Series 7 experienced Stock Advisor. My father gave me really bad advice. He once told me to put all my money in Zapp Bicycles. I got out of college, which he thought was a waste of time. He never paid a penny for my schooling, and I did agree that most of it was a joke. Anyways, out of college, I made $20 grand fixing up old cars. It was a lot of money back in my world. I was just about to put it all on Zapp. My father bought a Zapp. It was his way of avoiding a DUI. He used it to go to his favorite bar in the avenues on it. I went over to his house to ride the Zapp. I knew they just didn't do it right. It was too heavy. I didn't let it all ride on Zapp. A week later their stock went down, and stayed there. Even though I had a degree in business, knew about diversification; there was a part of me who wanted to follow my dad's advice. (Poor kids--don't do this. Rich kids get good advice about money. Poor kids don't.) I still have 11 grand of that money. I would have thought inflation would have eaten it all up. All along, all I really wanted was enough money to buy a Harley, and ride across America. Now, I'm worried about theft. I'm worried about going by myself. I wanted to meet the perfect Midwestern girl. Over the years, I realized there's no perfect Midwestern girl. A little off topic?

szx 10y ago

Slightly OT: The Time Warner Cable (TWC) vs. Time Warner confusion in this thread and elsewhere will luckily be resolved soon as the TWC brand is being phased out in favor of Spectrum [1]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-17/so-long-time-warner-cable-charter-to-retire-much-maligned-brand https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-17/so-long-t...

droithomme 10y ago

How does AT&T even have $80B. They have been irrelevant for many years. On the flip side I guess it makes sense that a big media company is on the rails. For media companies it's hard to make a living in the new economy. (Virtually) no one buys magazines these days so Time is irrelevant. And most people are pirates so being a movie studio is likewise a dead end vocation. They're lucky to find someone that wants to buy them. The price is absolutely enormous. Again, where on earth does AT&T have this sort of money.

muninn_ 10y ago
Wait what do you mean irrelevant? They are a gigantic corporation with a revenue of nearly $150 billion/year.
neom 10y ago
Irrelevant for many years? Uhm: http://as-rank.caida.org/?mode0=as-info&mode1=as-table&as=7018 http://as-rank.caida.org/?mode0=as-info&mode1=as-table&as=70...
lagadu 10y ago
> (Virtually) no one > And most people are pirates I'm fairly confident you have a very unrealistic/limited/biased view of reality: most people are not pirates. The virtually extinct magazines can still be seen on millions of points of sale every day around the world and if they're there with new stocks and content every day/week/month then they're still very widely sold. AT&T is a $226b corporation and time warner productions is a $73b who just got bought for 80.
gniv 10y ago
AT&T the holding company is not the AT&T company you imagine. See here for what makes up the current AT&T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Corporate_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Corporate_structure I think most of the money is made by what used to be called SBC, which has very lucrative landlines in the south; plus the mobile carrier business.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago

First AOL now ATT. Why are the TW execs always looking to sell out a perfectly viable company.

neom 10y ago

This is sorta like Verizon buying yahoo. This is not sorta like centurylink buying savvis.

voodootrucker 10y ago

That's $7000 per hostage... I mean customer.

m0atz 10y ago

How the fuck do you buy something for $80bn with a plan to make a profit? If only I knew, I'd have gone to my local NatWest and asked for a loan.

oli5679 10y ago

Seems to be a negative response to this deal re competitive implications. Can someone outline their theory of harm? I do some work in competition economics but am not American and don't know a lot about either company?

jasode 10y ago

Based on the top upvoted comment from echelon in this thread, there seems to be widespread confusion about Time Warner the media company. Maybe a better way to think of it: AT&T is buying HBO, TBS, and Warner Bros.[1] (If you squint a certain way and look at Yahoo as a "media company"... the AT&T acquisition of HBO+TBS+WB is somewhat a parallel industry move to Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo.[2]) AT&T is not buying the other company with the similar name Time Warner Cable. Yes, that other company owns some internet pipes (ISPs) but it is not involved in this transaction. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Divisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Divisions [2]https://www.fastcompany.com/3061232/platform-wars/with-yahoo-acquisition-verizon-hopes-to-grow-its-new-media-empire https://www.fastcompany.com/3061232/platform-wars/with-yahoo...

shp0ngle 10y ago
Also, part of Warner Bros is DC comics, owners of Batman and Superman and other DC intellectual property.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  This just makes me think about AOL/TimeWarner. So which giant will turn into a failing company? AT&T or Time Warner? I wish Fucked Company was still around. I want to know who people would bet against.

zyngaro 10y ago

The same thing is happening here in France where a major telco provider became also a major mass media player through acquisitions. I am not very comfortable with this trend especially regarding net neutrality, privacy and public opinion influence power.

circa 10y ago

Ah, wonderful news. Glad to hear this won't have any effect on the wonderful rollout of Spectrum I keep hearing about.

justinsingh 10y ago

Can they afford this acquisition? Seems huge.

pawnedrabbit 10y ago
Don't go by the number of $ to the valuations. They are rarely accurate.

Ericson2314 10y ago

May they be the second coming of AOL

zkhalique 10y ago

Oh great, more Telco consolidation. First the banks are too big to fail after the Great COnsolidation of the 90s and 2000s, and now this. So we can have more arguments about Title I and Title II and more arguments about the illusion of choice when we have only two choices ... DT or HC, Title I or Title II...

fred_is_fred 10y ago
TW is not a Telco. It's a content company.

dzink 10y ago

Content is king and now the telcos are likely fighting content rates renegotiations by acquiring content companies like TW. US cable subscription business was nearly 92 million households a few years ago. Now that Netflix has crossed more than half of that and they are competing with original content, the telcos have something to worry about. Comcast can do the same with NBCUniversal, the other telcos are left with low negotiation power come channel distribution deal time. The big BIG aspect of this deal is the number of top consumer-demanded channels run by Turner. ESPN (non-Turner) is the most expensive, but then TBS, TNT, and CNN, and Cartoon Network are near the top on the price list for cable distributors. In some plans they define upper-level subscription tiers. This acquisition seems good for competition - Comcast and AT&T would be less inclined to limit access to cable channels to their subscribers only if the other party has something they want.

soham 10y ago

Comcast <==> NBC Universal Verizon <==> Yahoo AT&T <==> Time Warner <<Pipes>> <==> <<Content>>

shmerl 10y ago
All of that is bad.
- TDL 10y ago
  Why?
  - shmerl 10y ago
    They are huge ISPs. When a crooked huge ISP owns media services, they can abuse their ownership of the physical network to disadvantage competing services which are routed through their network. And they are already doing it!

shmerl 10y ago

This should be simply illegal. A monstrous merger of massive network operator, and huge media company will create an abusive monopolist of gigantic proportions. I.e. they'll use their network to disadvantage competing media (they already do it, violating Net Neutrality with zero rating of their own video services). So, if they already do it, do you think becoming bigger they'll improve? It's an antitrust 101, but somehow this isn't banned outright.

scalio 10y ago

Tell me again how finding 10B to go to Mars is impossible? This is a satirical comment, trying to make a point: Depending on the context, the same amount of money can be considered anything from huge to tiny. It seems ridiculous to me that hundreds of billions routinely get pushed around in business mergers or military deals, where no one blinks an eye, but scraping together a tenth of that to do something actually interesting and/or useful is a major undertaking. Just goes to show how unfairly balanced this system is (regardless of which way it's balanced; some things have it easier than others).

shadykiller 10y ago

Time Warner stock price closed at 89$ on Friday. The deal if 109$ per share. Newbie trader question - If if buy the shares for time warner on monday morning, would I be able to make profit ?

TDL 10y ago
Assuming the price doesn't open at 109, maybe. The deal might still fail for a variety of reasons and then you are stuck with the stock and may or may not have to take a loss. If you are new to trading, I would say step away from event driven trading strategies. Understand trading first before playing this approach.

prirun 10y ago

The government spent untold amounts of money breaking up AT&T, then allows them to continue merging into a bigger company than ever. AT&T and Time Warner both suck. Their goal isn't to produce great products, it's to protect and expand their monopolies. One of the reasons most of us have only 2 choices for Internet service is that AT&T and the former TWC pay local community governments in exchange for exclusive access to the community. And if a community tries to "do their own thing", they get sued. Google is trying or considering coming to Louisville and the first thing AT&T did was sue them. I know this deal is about the TWC media company, but AT&T's behavior in other areas is still relevant.