AT&T says nothing will change when it buys Time Warner. AT&T says everything will change when it buys Time Warner.

When AT&T owns Time Warner, nothing will change; AT&T will treat Time Warner like a standalone company. When AT&T owns Time Warner, AT&T will offer Time Warner stuff to its customers that they can’t get anywhere else. Which version of that is true? Both versions! Just depends on who AT&T execs are trying to convince, as they look for government regulators and Wall Street to bless their $86 billion deal.

The regulator part is the really hard hurdle: Washington seems to be increasingly skeptical about mega deals like this — which is why it nixed Comcast-Time Warner Cable — and so AT&T has to convince officials that it won’t make it harder for people who don’t have AT&T to get “Game of Thrones” or the next Batman movie, or CNN. AT&T has common sense on its side when it makes this argument, since if it limits access to Khaleesi or Batman or Wolf Blitzer, or provides special access to them, all of those things become less valuable for Comcast customers or Verizon customers or anyone who doesn’t get AT&T. And even if AT&T wanted to do that, there’s zero chance regulators will let it happen. It’s a non-starter.