Ownership

Comcast announced an offer worth $65 billion for the bulk of 21st Century Fox’s businesses, setting up a showdown with the Walt Disney Company for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. The all-cash bid by Comcast, the largest cable company in the United States, came a day after a federal judge approved a merger between AT&T and Time Warner. Comcast executives had awaited the decision in that case before mounting their bid for 21st Century Fox.

Ion, Univision and Trinity Broadcasting say the Federal Communications Commission should not only grandfather their TV station holdings' discounted audience reach if the FCC adjusts the UHF discount or 39% audience reach cap, but should also allow them to transfer that grandfathered status to a new owner. That came in comments on the FCC's inquiry into whether that 39% cap needs to be raised or scrapped (or conceivably lowered, though that is highly unlikely). 

AT&T emerged victorious from its courtroom battle with the Department of Justice. What this means for the future of TV:

[Commentary] The AT&T/Time Waner deal is not unique. Its template was laid out in 2011 by what was then the biggest such “vertical” merger in the information and entertainment sectors: Comcast’s $30-billion takeover of NBCUniversal.  That earlier deal united a big Internet service provider with a big purveyor of content. It was pitched as bringing huge benefits to the public — improved cable TV and internet technology, more innovative TV programming, lower prices. Have you seen any of that since 2011? Me neither. 

Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams, the longtime confidant of Trump Cabinet member Ben Carson, is set to get what he called “a good deal” — three local television stations from Sinclair Broadcasting Group for just a fraction of the market price. Williams is acquiring the three stations — in Seattle (WA), Salt Lake City (UT) and Oklahoma City (OK) — for $4.95 million. That’s some $45 million to $55 million less than what Justin Nielson, a senior research analyst who tracks the broadcast sector for the data and research firm Kagan, said he would have expected.

The dissolution of net neutrality regulations and the AT&T/Time Warner decision could shape the internet for years to come. 

Judge Richard Leon issued a stinging rebuke to the Justice Department's attempt to block AT&T's $85 billion bid to acquire Time Warner. But that doesn't mean the case is over. The Justice Department can appeal the ruling, and the department's antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, is considering that option.  "I think the constitution and the statues allow for due process for all litigants and we will take a look at what the next steps are," Delrahim said.

[Commentary] The government's insistence on bringing such a weak lawsuit [AT&T/Time Warner] does not bode well for the immediate future of antitrust. There are going to be plenty of mergers over the next few years that will have far more serious consequences than the AT&T-Time Warner deal. Having been slapped down in this lawsuit, the Justice Department is unlikely to be willing to go after those worthier targets, even when they raise important issues of innovation and consumer choice.

As long as the big tech is the enemy, companies are pretty much free to buy, sell and trade assets to keep from falling behind. Judge Richard Leon said as much when he approved when he approved AT&T's acquisition of Time warner. He isn’t wrong that Silicon Valley giants pose real threats to media companies.

President Donald Trump knew right away how he felt about AT&T’s proposed $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. He hated it. “It’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few,” Trump said on the day the deal was struck in October 2016, adding that, if he were elected, his administration would block the purchase. Judge Richard Leon considered the matter for several months and in a lengthy opinion June 12 ruled that President Trump’s take, shot from the hip, was off the mark. The merger of media giants can move forward, despite legal objections by the Justice Department.