Despite President Trump promising he'd block the deal, AT&T and Time Warner have started talking with the Department of Justice on potential conditions for their megamerger. According to Bloomberg, antitrust officials have "moved on" from discussing whether the deal will be approved, "to talking about how they can make the merger work without harming rivals." Or, as the case often is, how they can affix conditions that at least give that impression, since the kind of conditions usually affixed to telecom deals don't really do all that much.
AT&T's streaming competitors are pushing for meaningful conditions, however, since they worry AT&T will use its size to prevent competitors from getting access to content licensing they'll need to compete with AT&T's own DirecTV Now streaming service.
AT&T has also repeatedly come under fire for using usage caps to penalize competitors, but not AT&T's own content (aka zero rating).
AT&T and Time Warner already managed to eliminate the need for FCC review by selling an Atlanta TV station and avoiding any spectrum license transfers, which would have triggered FCC involvement. That means the deal only needs approval by the DOJ, where Trump appointed a new antitrust boss that has publicly stated he doesn't see any problem with the megamerger.
Trump repeatedly promised to block the merger on the campaign trail.
"In an example of the power structure I’m fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN -- a deal we will not approve in my administration because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few," Trump said last fall.
That was then, this is now. Most analysts expect the deal to be approved with relatively modest conditions, which would be in line with the Trump administration's rather cozy treatment of incumbent ISPs like AT&T (see the killing of
consumer privacy rules and
net neutrality). Another report this week in the New York Times indicated that post-merger, AT&T is planning to kill off the Time Warner brand completely, and current Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes will be moving on once the deal is completed.
