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Comment by samfisher83 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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I am sure our public servants were paid handsomely to take a look at it. (sorry hn, was that snarky?)

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.

Fair enough. And more seriously, we must revisit this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

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).

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.

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.

Hm. In investigating, I saw that Comcast's intended merger was with TWC, which makes a difference (as both are infrastructure companies).

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.

they have incentives to not license it only to themselves or they will see huge drop in viewers across all assets, not that worried

I don't think the regulators have approved it yet. I hope they don't.

Comcast already bought NBC Universal. Train has left the station.

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.

because people who do watch those pictures would end up paying more than they should.

i.e. - it's market-distorting

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.

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