Los Angeles Times

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has agreed to new terms to acquire Sky, the pan-European TV group, in a deal worth £24.5 billion that is designed to see off a rival offer from US media giant Comcast.

The next time a big company, and especially a telecom company, tells lawmakers and regulators that a multibillion-dollar merger will result in lower prices for consumers, I hope everyone in the room breaks out in laughter. At this point, it’s patently obvious that such pledges of price reductions are almost always hogwash. Prices rarely if ever go down after a big merger.

For years, the big internet service providers have striven to hamstring competition across the telecommunications landscape. And in June 2018, they essentially asked the Federal Communications Commission to finish the job by repealing a rule granting competing phone and internet companies wholesale access to their copper-wire phone infrastructure.

Imagine if, ahead of HBO’s next “Westworld” premiere, AT&T sent a 5-minute video recap to millions of users it knows watch science fiction. The mobile giant could target young women with the latest trailer of Warner Bros.’s upcoming romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians.” Or analyze users’ interests to create customized CNN news clips for customers to watch on their lunch breaks.

Four years after embarking on a project to bring internet access to remote locations through the use of internet-beaming drones, Facebook is giving up on designing its own aircraft. Instead, the tech giant said that it will work with aerospace manufacturer Airbus and other partners.