Michael Farrell

A Q&A with Robert Blair, senior advisor to the White House Chief of Staff. His new challenge: help further Trump’s global aims on 5G, including an ongoing campaign to prevent America’s allies from relying on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. “One of the messages that I want to bring to people is: Take a breath,” Blair says. “The Chinese are not winning this race.”

The rising number of media mergers expected to fall on the Federal Communications Commission’s doorstep could force the regulatory agency to consider blocking at least one of the mega-deals before it, influential media analyst Craig Moffett wrote.

In his report, Moffett noted that all of those deals -- and probably several more that haven’t been announced yet -- trace their reason for being to the enormous scale and power that Comcast/TWC will have over the television and broadband industry. And that, Moffett wrote, is why at least one of them could be blocked by the agency.

But which one will get the boot? Moffett isn’t speculating -- he added that the anti-trust case against Comcast/TWC is weak, the companies’ footprints don’t overlap and no competitor would be eliminated. But he noted the combined company would control about 40% of the broadband customers in the country, a figure that could raise eyebrows.

DirecTV CEO Mike White said his company’s pending merger with AT&T will unlock tremendous growth potential for the satellite giant, even as investors sent shares of both participants southward amid doubts about the benefits of the merger.

While the declines in shares were small, they are in sharp contrast to what usually happens to the seller in such mega-deals -- in contrast, Time Warner Cable stock was up 7% on the day it announced its $69 billion deal with Comcast -- and could point to concerns investors have about the deal outside of potential hurdles to regulatory approval.

White, who will continue to head up the DirecTV unit after the deal closes, said the merger offers the satellite giant an opportunity for growth. And while White and Stephenson wouldn’t mention it by name, it appears that the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger -- which will create a 30-million-subcriber cable powerhouse -- influenced their decision to seek out a deal.

White also sees a big customer service opportunity in the deal, allowing DirecTV to offer more products in a single truck roll. “To me the real opportunity is growth,” White continued. “For us this is a real unlock, it unlocks our way to better serve rural areas, when you think about the 15 million [customer] build out of rural areas.”

Hearst Television stations went dark to Dish Network subscribers after the parties failed to reach a retransmission consent agreement by the 9 p.m. Central Time deadline.

But the parties appear to differ on the reason for the blackout -- Hearst says it’s not over money (which is typically at the heart of these disputes.) "It appears that Dish does not have a problem with the rates we are seeking," said Dan Joerres, president and general manager of Hearst’s Baltimore station WBAL-TV, in a statement.

"But the Dish negotiating team is seeking other terms that we don't have in our deals with any other cable or satellite distributor or telco, nor do we have them in our current deal with Dish. Frankly, we are scratching our heads as to why Dish would hold their own customers and our viewers hostage for terms that are radically off-market."

Stocks at some of the top station groups were clobbered after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed eliminating coordinated retransmission consent negotiations, a move that could lessen the grip some station groups have on distributors in both rural and urban markets.