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Comment by swang | Hacker News Reader

Hmm. FCC allows rules to let Sinclair Broadcasting expand to becoming a monopoly. OK! Net Neutrality? Possibly gone by next month.

AT&T and Time Warner to merge together?: "It would mean higher monthly television bills and fewer of the new, emerging innovative options that consumers are beginning to enjoy."

Yes I know the FCC is not the DOJ, or the FTC. Just seems like Republican-led departments and commissions can't seem to get their story straight on whether mergers and fewer options are beneficial to customers or not.

I'm not for this merger. But certainly seems like Trump's interference in this is probably going to udnermine any semblance of partiality by the DOJ.

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The FCC loosened media ownership rules (a complete ban on owning a newspaper and TV/radio station in the same market) that have no counterpart in most EU countries. The DOJ sued to block a merger that would get intense antitrust scrutiny in most EU countries. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

What does the EU have to do with this?

Seems intended to indicate a lack of influence from the Trump administration, and that this behavior is not unusual in other political bodies such as the EU.

Comparison to the EU shows that this is not an incongruous combination of decisions, as OP implies.

It shows that this is not a controversial decision at all and similar decision would be probably made in all western countries. Whether there is some Trump vendetta as driver for this decision is not very relevant if the decision is correct.

But that is completely negating that the media markets in EU and the US are completely different.

For instance, a number of european countries have a strong public broadcaster to provide a neutral source of news. PBS or NPR aren't really comparable in most cases.

And in many cases, local stations aren't owned by a corporate entity, completely making such rules irrelevant.

Isn't providing a "Neutral" source of news basically impossible? Even if you could somehow address all sides of a story (e.g. besides actual scientists let's also interview some flat earthers to allow them to explain how the Earth is flat) the mere fact that there's too much to report and the channel invariably needs to choose what goes on air mean that it's no longer neutral.

Public channels are also funded by the government, so there can be institutional pressure to present the government actions in a good light. Even if there isn't, a change in public policy might mean less spending on the public channel, which might mean journalists lose their jobs, which is significant incentive to promote pro-status quo viewpoints on the channel.

The german TV station Das Erste is quite good at being impartial and neutral.

Reports are factual, there is little to no opinion and government issues are frequently included. Atleast in my experience they have been very good at keeping neutral.

> Isn't providing a "Neutral" source of news basically impossible? Even if you could somehow address all sides of a story (e.g. besides actual scientists let's also interview some flat earthers to allow them to explain how the Earth is flat) the mere fact that there's too much to report and the channel invariably needs to choose what goes on air mean that it's no longer neutral.

Giving air time to flat-earthers isn't neutral, it's pandering to idiots.

Neutral is clear and factual reporting on issues, regardless of where on the political spectrum that lands you.

The point is that Sinclair is very pro-Trump, to the point that all affiliates nationwide are forced to run pro-Trump editorial content while CNN publishes things Trump doesn't like.

CNN is extremely anti-Trump

But only one of those companies is suspected of a quid-pro-quo deal with Trumps son in law from before the election.

So you should be happy that they're not merging?

The FCC always does the wrong thing. After eight decades of constant efforts to retard progress and competition in media and radio technology, we can't really be surprised now. I for one am not sad to see other regulators attempt to pick up the slack. I'd certainly like to see a more active FTC, for example.

Media ownership rules exist in plenty of other countries though e.g. UK, Australia and would never have allowed this.

And no one could argue that the US media market needed more centralisation.

Last I heard Australia was getting rid of some media ownership restrictions. I think one reason is the dismal performance of media companies in Australia.

Neither of those countries has a categorical ban like the U.S. had. They have market share-based restrictions, with e.g. certain restrictions kicking in where the newspaper has 20% national market share. I'm not sure any U.S. newspaper would hit that number.

Is europe a good example of perfection here? It seems to me that rules on media ownership are a good thing. Here in the Czech republic, our prime minister owns all but one major newspapers, two TV stations, and a radio station. https://vergecampus.com/2016/09/andrej-babis-and-the-separat...

While I hesitate to presume any logic on the part of government agencies, I don’t see a problem. I would assume the answer is that the specific facts of each individual case are considered, rather than applying a blanket “all mergers are bad/good”.

Sounds right to me.

Net Neutrality: impinges on profits of big telecoms.

Sinclair: amazing opportunity to simultaneously reward a major republican donor and disseminate overtly biased, conservative talking points in millions of American homes.

ATT: great opportunity to kneecap CNN, which the President hates.

You have a good point, but don't kid yourself with "overtly biased, conservative talking points".

There is little to no truly balanced and fact-oriented media. Obviously, except for those perceived as such by their respective viewers on either side of the political spectrum.

I don't think he's exaggerating. Watch the segment that John Oliver did on Sinclair. The content of the "must run" pieces is definitely alarming.

Segment in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc

Really no fact orientated media ?

BBC (UK), PBS (US), NPR (US), ABC (Australia) etc are surely examples.

218B + 62B market caps of two massive media conglomerates. The merger is bad news. It's just a recipe for monoculture.

AT&T does not have any content prior to this deal, which is why it is called a vertical merger. They are simply not competing in any business. It is quite similar to Comcast buying NBC/Universal.

Just wanted to point out that this does not include Time Warner Cable which was already acquired by Spectrum. (And yes, that merger made bills go up. Even the customer service reps admit it)

Spectrum is a product of the Charter Communications company[0]. Further, it is very rare (possible non-existent) for 2 cable companies to operate in the same market. Time Warner Cable and Charter did not compete in any market, as far as I know, so it is unclear how their merger would create less competition when the cable industry mostly operates as a monopoly in any given market in the first place.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_Communications

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