AT&T's Acquisition of Time Warner

[mark_j]

The deal, valued at just over $85 billion, brings together two companies that already cast big shadows. AT&T is the country’s second-largest cell-phone service provider, and with DirecTV it's the number one pay TV company in the United States. A streaming DirecTV service, called DirecTV Now, is slated to launch by the end of the year.

Time Warner—which split from the Time Warner Cable in 2009—is home to HBO, Warner Bros. film studios, CNN, TBS, and TNT. It also owns DC Entertainment, where both Batman and Superman hang their capes, and it has a 10 percent stake in the Hulu streaming subscription service. It offers HBO Now, a monthly paid streaming service that doesn’t require you to be a pay-TV subscriber.

Article here.

Guess we'll get to see if AT&T can do better with this deal than Time Warner did with the AOL merger..

 

[nerfhearder]

ATT wants their monopoly back, always have. Just their way of doing it.

 

[Hard_Rom]

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/23/media/att-time-warner-deal/index.html

"This is not the T-Mobile deal; there is no competitor being removed from the marketplace," AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson noted during a conference call with the media. "Time Warner is a supplier to AT&T. It's a classic vertical merger. They're always dealt with by concessions and conditions -- that's what we anticipate happening here."

 

[sr71plt]

Sounds good to me. I've got a big glop of AT&T.

 

[about_average]

The Supreme Court may end up weighing in.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-supreme-court-decides-paramount-antitrust-case

 

[Hypoxia]

AT&T fucked us over the last time we had to deal with them. I don't expect a change of stripes. Our little county has its own commo monopoly so mega-AT&T isn't a factor here. Yet.

 

[mark_j]

Sounds good to me. I've got a big glop of AT&T.

I think if I remember right they were paying something like $108 a share for it. I'd have to look at the stock ticker at close..

 

[Disgustipated]

I think if I remember right they were paying something like $108 a share for it. I'd have to look at the stock ticker at close..

Are you sure that wasn't Time Warner at around $108?

 

[Christobal]

Media consideration has always worked out to provide the best service.

I'm looking at you Comcast.

Yeah it's been great.

 

[mark_j]

Are you sure that wasn't Time Warner at around $108?

It was one of the two..

 

[Disgustipated]

Uh-Oh


People ain't likin' it.

 

[Shagly]

Sounds like another monopoly is in the works.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

ATT wants their monopoly back, always have. Just their way of doing it.

AT&T fucked us over the last time we had to deal with them. I don't expect a change of stripes. Our little county has its own commo monopoly so mega-AT&T isn't a factor here. Yet.

Sounds like another monopoly is in the works.

If you people knew anything about the government break up of AT&T in 1984 and exactly what paltry assets SBC Communications got when it BOUGHT WHAT LITTLE WAS LEFT of the original telecommunications giant a full 21 years later, you would know how patently absurd it is to use the words "AT&T" and "monopoly" in the same sentence or to believe there is any meaningful lasting legacy or direct continuing corporate lineage between the "old" AT&T and the company that bears that name today.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about.

 

[Hypoxia]

You clearly do not know what you are talking about.

I know that AT&T fraudulently overbilled our cell charges a bit over a decade ago, and that it took a year to clear up. That wasn't pre-1984 Ma Bell. Note: I called my local telecom company a 'monopoly', not AT&T. Folks in my county without satellite dishes have only VolCom wires to depend on.

This US$85 billion buyout isn't exactly small change. IMHO massive concentration of communications media is not A Good Thing for the nation. Is it monopoly? No, more like a cartel, with (at last glance) six corporations owning 95% of USA media. The public interest ain't necessarily the stockholders' interest.

 

[sr71plt]

ATT wants their monopoly back, always have. Just their way of doing it.

That's fine with me. Had a lot of AT&T stock before it was broken up and suddenly had eleven separate stocks to keep up with from that. Just fine that they are coming back together again.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

I know that AT&T fraudulently overbilled our cell charges a bit over a decade ago, and that it took a year to clear up. That wasn't pre-1984 Ma Bell. Note: I called my local telecom company a 'monopoly', not AT&T. Folks in my county without satellite dishes have only VolCom wires to depend on.

This US$85 billion buyout isn't exactly small change. IMHO massive concentration of communications media is not A Good Thing for the nation. Is it monopoly? No, more like a cartel, with (at last glance) six corporations owning 95% of USA media. The public interest ain't necessarily the stockholders' interest.

In all honesty, I do not know what you know about telecommunications history. My only quarrel with your previous wording was the reference to "mega-AT&T." Technically that is a misnomer. What you really meant (whether you knew it or not) was "mega-SBC Communications." SBC has built itself into a major telecom player since the divestiture of AT&T. Along the way, SBC BOUGHT the AT&T brand. Several elements of the "old" AT&T have coalesced under SBC management including several other regional bell operating companies (RBOCs) like SBC that had exisited under the corporate wing of AT&T when it was a true monopoly.

But that re-homogenization has everything to do with SBC management and literally nothing to do with any AT&T management that SBC bought. AT&T was little more than a corporate shell when SBC bought it. That's what people don't understand.

 

[Lancecastor]

AT&T was little more than a corporate shell when SBC bought it. That's what people don't understand.

I just love the way AT&T goes from one acquisition and divestment to another...they don't make anything other than boardroom deals...a Brand Name For Hire.

 

[ryan8558]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHaFh8tu1Ys

 

[Christobal]

On a side note. I dropped ATT over a billing dispute. Three years later they sent me me a refund. Out of blue. I had not sent any further questions.

I just gave up on them. Three years?

 

[Colonel Hogan]

I just love the way AT&T goes from one acquisition and divestment to another...they don't make anything other than boardroom deals...a Brand Name For Hire.

Well, that's not exactly true either. SBC/AT&T as it exists today is a major voice and data services provider. It now owns roughly half or so of the 'Baby Bell' local phone companies that once made up the bulwark of the national telephone infrastructure. After divestiture, all the local phone companies owned their local trunk, access lines and central office switches and facilities. Now SBC/AT&T owns them.

But we'll never have a single phone monopoly again, because competitor access to all local and long distance transport lines and switches is guaranteed and regulated by the federal government.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

So they are going for a vertical monopoly instead of a horizontal monopoly.

Market power like this is bad. Where are all the free market Capitalists?

 

[Christobal]

This something I have done. I gave up on crappy service. I learned I could do without it.

 

[Disgustipated]

This something I have done. I gave up on crappy service. I learned I could do without it.

http://i.imgur.com/ZI6AqeG.jpg

 

[nerfhearder]

If you people knew anything about the government break up of AT&T in 1984 and exactly what paltry assets SBC Communications got when it BOUGHT WHAT LITTLE WAS LEFT of the original telecommunications giant a full 21 years later, you would know how patently absurd it is to use the words "AT&T" and "monopoly" in the same sentence or to believe there is any meaningful lasting legacy or direct continuing corporate lineage between the "old" AT&T and the company that bears that name today.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about.

Don't take shit so seriously. I was a child when they broke up Ma Bell and I'd wager most on here weren't alive. It's just online banter. Of course nobody knows what they're talking about. Calling people out on it like that seems petty.

 

[Wrong Element]

So they are going for a vertical monopoly instead of a horizontal monopoly.

Market power like this is bad. Where are all the free market Capitalists?

The major concern would be if the new company attempted to restrict availability of Time Warner programming to those who own AT&T products. That was also the concern about Comcast and NBC, but so far so good on that front.


It looks like there's bipartisan interest into at least giving this proposed deal a skeptical eye.