Report: AT&T May Be Trying To Buy Time Warner

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Imagine how much money it would require to make this deal. Doesn't matter anyway, eventually one company will own everything and we'll all work for it (under the supervision of robots).

No, not Time Warner Cable — which Charter already bought, anyway. Time Warner, the company that owns HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network, all of Warner Bros., and a whole bunch of other media brands you know. Bloomberg reports that executives from AT&T and Time Warner have been meeting in “informal talks” during recent weeks to discuss various ways of working together — including a possible merger.
 
Everybody wins except consumers...all while the rest of the world has better and less expensive Internet on average.
 
I love when AT&T tries to force DirectTV on me every chance they get.
 
They advent of massive mergers marks the advent of the corporatist era.
 
They just got rid of their ad program for Gigafiber, reduced monthly price by $30, got rid of the data cap, and cut the modem rental fee altogether -- SO BAD OMG.
 
Guess it's easy to throw money around when all your services are automated and you charge extra 'administrative' and 'service' fees. Don't pay your on bill on time they 'disconnect' your services and charge you a 'reconnection' fee. They don't actually disconnect anything or stop services, but they still charge you up the ass.

Not to mention they are the only landline internet company in my town.

My guess is, if this goes through, Netflix and other streaming services will be blacklisted unless you pay a premium.

Only hope I have is the ex-comcast FCC chairman blocks this in favor of his old buddies.
 
This deal has nothing to due to Time Warner Cable but Time Warner the media company either was it probably isn't good for consumers.
 
Anything that results in ATT or Verizon gaining more power is bad for consumers. Comcast already has way too much power, no need to create more monsters.
 
Teenyman45 said:
Is now when I start taking some member berries to remember when the government used to care about preventing concentration of media ownership because it was recognized as dangerous to have so much messaging power controlled by so few people?
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But the media by and large is in effect a branch of the "Democrat" party, so they are not going to do anything to prevent their propaganda machine becoming more powerful.
 
Agree with Donald Trump's position of not allowing this merger. There would be exactly one internet/cable provider in half of San Diego if this occurred. I believe in capitalism, but the end result is a monopoly. There has to be some control to keep things competitive.
 
For something like this to go through I think that they should be forced to sell off something. I know that was required of some mergers years past. For example I want to say that when Alltel sold they were forced to split between AT&T and Verizon based on which area had the worse coverage in that region. So if AT&T had good coverage and Verizon had crap that tower went to Verizon, and vice versa. Should do something like if both AT&T and TW both service an area then AT&T has to sell off one either the ILEC or cable area to another company unrelated to them of a smaller size for a reasonable amount. Ideal would be multiple smaller guys buying up various ILEC areas so that they can actually do something in those areas. As we have already seen the cluster fuck that has happen few times small Tier 2s tried to grow up to be larger Tier 2s over night. So have a few small Tier 3s take over 1 extra city/town or 2. Or a small Tier 2 take on a few extra towns/cities. Keeps us from getting another mess like Frontier or Century Link. Although even then you are reducing the number of content creators and content distributors. Right now on the large scale you have Dish, DirecTV, Comcast, TW, Cox, Mediacom, then all the various IPTV services offered by ISPs. Comcast already owns NBC/Universal. TW owns their stuff. Now you would be removing AT&T Uverse and DirecTV (which combined is already the largest paid tv group) under TW meaning that you now have many more people service by the owner of certain stations that you are being offered. Guess all we would need then is for Disney to buy Dish & Echostar. Then all the big guys better set to screw people.

sleepeeg3 said:
Agree with Donald Trump's position of not allowing this merger. There would be exactly one internet/cable provider in half of San Diego if this occurred. I believe in capitalism, but the end result is a monopoly. There has to be some control to keep things competitive.
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I personally don't believe any politician that says they wouldn't allow this to happen. They all get paid way too much to agree with these things, they wouldn't hurt themselves that badly. I am watching a politician now in the pocket of AT&T and Comcast and how much his is trying to be an asshole to everyone who is actually in his territory. When asked to support his people he just comes back with "do you understand how much money these guys pay me to do what they say, that would be career suicide to not do what they say."
 
sleepeeg3 said:
There would be exactly one internet/cable provider in half of San Diego if this occurred.
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Time Warner doesn't offer internet access. Time Warner Cable used to. Time Warner Cable was bought by Charter. So, if you have ATT and "Time Warner" as options, nothing changes.
 
This isn't Time Warner Cable.

It's hilarious how many people don't even understand what's happening and make these comments about big bad companies and AT&T. Your thoughts might be relevant but you don't even have a clue what's going on. And you wonder why stupid shit is happening in our country.
 
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Yea, this is about a media production company which owns HBO, among many others.

Not TWC, the broadband provider.
 
big_aug said:
This isn't Time Warner Cable.

It's hilarious how many people don't even understand what's happening and make these comments about big bad companies and AT&T. Your thoughts might be relevant but you don't even have a clue what's going on. And you wonder why stupid shit is happening in our country.
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I will admit that I forgot that they had spun off the cable section and sold it to Charter with the name still existing as Time Warner Cable. I recalled the FCC refusing to let Comcast buy them given how large that was going to make them, but forget that did end still with them being sold. So parts of my post are incorrect as they will not increase in size. However you still have the largest paid tv service provider trying to take on being the owners of a large amount of content which still creates a massive issue for customers.
 
It also amuses me when everyone is so pro free market and then they scream for regulation during these deals.

Not pointing at anyone in this thread. I'm talking in general. People like Trump and others speaking out against it and touting less government regulation all the while. It makes me want to fucking vomit.

No regulation except when I think it's necessary! You can have it your own way as long as it's done just how I say!
 
big_aug said:
It also amuses me when everyone is so pro free market and then they scream for regulation during these deals.

Not pointing at anyone in this thread. I'm talking in general. People like Trump and others speaking out against it and touting less government regulation all the while. It makes me want to fucking vomit.

No regulation except when I think it's necessary! You can have it your own way as long as it's done just how I say!
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You can still have a balance between both. Without regulations to prevent the abuse of a monopoly (which is what is illegal not being on in of itself) there would be many things that could end up outside the reach of the average person. While at the same time you can still have free market to allow things to happen up to a certain level on their own. So basically minimalistic regulations. However what you said is true, people don't want the government to interfere in everything about their life but then turn around and start to demand that the government step in and force certain things to happen. And normally under some false sense that it will be better for them or cheaper.
 
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