Innovation or a monopoly? AT&T, Time Warner go before Senate

“Game of Thrones on HBO, the Queen on Netflix, Mozart in the Jungle on Amazon-we want more content like this, and that’s why it’s critical to maintain competition that drives innovation and benefits consumers”, she said in an e-mailed statement. “Like a exhausted movie franchise, we can predict the ending before it begins”. AT&T wireless customers who also subscribe to DIRECTV can watch that content on their mobile devices without it counting against their data allowance.

“By owning Time Warner content, we will be able to innovate more quickly, experiment more readily, tweak our offerings as we gauge customer response and bring consumers the options they seek”, Stephenson said at the hearing.

Stephenson added that the company would follow an approach crafted by the Justice Department to ensure that AT&T lives up to that promise, a nod to possible conditions that the regulator could place on the merger.

“There are too few players in these markets already”.

Jeff Bewkes during a hearing on December 7.

“AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner likely has a higher probability of getting approved given the impending power shift in Washington, D.C.”, Eric Handler of MKM Partners said last month. The deal also may hasten AT&T’s development of faster 5G wireless service to deliver its newly acquired video content, Stephenson said.

AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said Wednesday that AT&T is a communications company that distributes content, while Time Warner is a content creator.

Trump administration would keep a close eye on the deal.

“It’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few”, Trump had said.

AT&T has been criticized for spending more than $150 billion on a satellite TV provider and legacy media company as a huge swath of its fixed-line network remains un-upgraded. At the same time, he’s trying to win over the growing legions of cord-cutters who don’t pay for cable. A year ago it’s deal to acquire DIRECTV got a green light from regulators. The CEOs, Stephenson of AT&T and Jeffrey Bewkes of Time Warner, are due to appear Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016, before a Senate antitrust panel whose Republican chairman and senior Democrat have said the proposed $85.4 billion merger of the communications giants would potentially raise significant antitrust issues.

AT&T calls this a vertical merger, in which the company gets access to Time Warner’s media properties like HBO and CNN.

Kimmelman also dismissed comparisons of the AT&T-Time Warner proposal with AT&T’s merger with DirecTV. He said that the combined company would give Time Warner more flexibility to offer “more choices and better experiences at more attractive prices”.

“It would be a gross mistake to view this transaction as anything but pro-competitive”, said Randall Stephenson. “You have every reason to do this if you could”.

The witness list also includes billionaire and entrepreneur Mark Cuban as well as Gene Kimmelman, president of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group that has objected to the merger.

The US review of the deal should be straightforward, and the companies will probably have to make some concessions, Stephenson told investors yesterday. At least according to this first round of Congressional scrutiny and the reactions of lawmakers, it’s not yet clear if the deal would meet that standard. The wireless company is working on gaining regulatory approval for its Time Warner deal.