AT&T Can’t Easily Cut Connection With CNN or Turner

Will AT&T hang up on its quest for Time Warner if it can’t hang on to some of its most valuable assets? Answering that question could become paramount in the company’s effort to secure the $85 billion merger it proposed with Time Warner in October. Turner owns valuable sports rights, sharing with CBS the broadcast of the NCAA’s “March Madness” men’s basketball championship tournament. That event generated a record-setting $1.24 billion in national TV advertising in 2016, according to Kantar, a tracker of ad spending. And Turner enjoys a unique relationship with the National Basketball Association, co-managing the league’s digital portfolio. Turner also has the rights to broadcast post-season Major League Baseball games. To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with Time Warner’s other divisions, HBO and Warner Brothers. But buying Time Warner without CNN and sports rights would be akin to purchasing a balloon that had lost more than half its helium.