Sen Franken Wants 'Highest Scrutiny' of AT&T-Time Warner

Veteran consolidation critic Sen Al Franken (D-MN) has serious issues with the AT&T-Time Warner merger, he told Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and Attorney General Loretta Lynch in letters to both Oct 24.

Sen Franken urged the "highest level" of scrutiny and could do some scrutinizing of the deal himself or at least of the players, particularly if Democrats win back the Senate. Sen Franken said he is skeptical of any further media consolidation. "Combining these behemoths would create a mega media conglomerate with both the incentive and ability to use its platform to harm consumers and competitors alike," he said. AT&T has said its platform would be open to competing programmers and signaled the digital rights to Time Warner programming would be available as well, but Sen Franken signaled he is not assuaged by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson's suggestion behavioral conditions would take care of concerns about access to content. "I have serious doubts about the enforceability and reliability of such conditions as a remedy for anticompetitive behavior," Sen Franken said. He cited the Comcast-NBCU deal, which he also opposed, and the protracted fight with Bloomberg TV over "news neighborhooding" prohibition as an example of those conditions not working as advertised. He also cited AT&T's DirecTV price hike increases and accusations that it failed to meet some commitments in the BellSouth/Cingular integration.