The blueprint for the disastrous AT&T-Time Warner deal was written years ago by the Comcast-NBC merger

[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. 

The FCC thought it could keep Comcast on the straight and narrow by imposing more than a dozen conditions on its merger in 2011. It was wrong. Instead it was forced into countless battles with the ever-more-powerful company, and lots of litigation. Thanks to Judge Leon, the AT&T-Time Warner merger will be completed without any such conditions. The smart money says that further mergers along the same lines will shortly be proposed, with Verizon, Comcast, Walt Disney, and 21st Century Fox among the future brides and grooms. Open season on consumers’ pocketbooks, and on their access to the content they wish to watch, starts now.