New York Times

On Oct 22, AT&T said it planned to acquire Time Warner for $85.4 billion — the biggest deal of the year. On Oct 21, British American Tobacco offered $47 billion for the portion of Reynolds American that it does not already own. And this week, the chip maker Qualcomm is expected to make a $37 billion offer for the rival company NXP Semiconductors. Such megadeals are often postponed during times of political or economic uncertainty. Yet at what feels to many like a tumultuous moment for the global economy, many corporate titans apparently see smooth sailing ahead.

The most imminent economic concern may be the outcome of the race for the White House. Though Donald Trump has positioned himself as a successful businessman, economists have warned of market upheavals if he is elected. But with Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump wide and still growing with less than three weeks until Election Day, chief executives appear to be betting that the race is all but over. But while corporate executives are monitoring a laundry list of political and economic risks, no single factor appears to be a major cause for concern. Instead, there is a growing sense that the combination of slow but steady economic growth, rapid technological innovation and an uncertain geopolitical landscape is here to stay for some time, or what business leaders call “the new normal.”

“Let’s be honest, prices aren’t going to go down because of this. I don’t think vertical integration lends itself to consumer benefits.”
-- Rich Greenfield, a media analyst at BTIG Research, on AT&T-Time Warner deal

Over three decades ago, such was AT&T’s monopoly over the nation’s communications networks that the government forcefully shattered its empire. Now, as one of its successors again seeks a formidable business empire by buying Time Warner, lawmakers, analysts and advocacy groups are closely watching to see if the union, or any that follow in its wake, poses harm to consumers.

Reaction to AT&T’s $85.4 billion purchase was swift — and, outside of Wall Street, full of skepticism. Much of the concern was rooted in how consumers have fared since Comcast bought NBCUniversal, a deal that provided a template for the consolidation of media and telecommunications. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee said they planned to hold a hearing on the deal. And even competitors like Disney quickly chimed in, urging regulators to pay close attention in their review. At issue is whether AT&T, with over 100 million subscribers across its wireless, broadband and DirecTV offerings, will somehow favor its own customers when it comes to HBO, CNN and Warner Bros. properties like the Batman and Harry Potter franchises. Some consumer rights advocates also questioned how AT&T will use the viewership data that it gathers from its subscribers, particularly if the Time Warner acquisition drives more consumers to AT&T’s services.

“Let’s be honest, prices aren’t going to go down because of this,” said Rich Greenfield, a media analyst at BTIG Research. “I don’t think vertical integration lends itself to consumer benefits.”

The worry among consumer groups and rivals, of course, is that for AT&T to make the deal work strategically and financially, it is going to use Time Warner’s content as a weapon against its rivals by raising the price that they pay for carriage of channels such as HBO and CNN, while integrating those same channels into new AT&T offerings at lower prices. Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, dismissed that notion, calling it “illogical” and saying he wants to “dispel” such an idea. He insisted he has no intention to limit Time Warner’s content on rival systems and that “it doesn’t make business sense” to restrict the distribution of Time Warner programming. Instead, he said, he sees the benefits of the merger coming from the additional data AT&T will be able to provide to Time Warner — and advertisers — about what consumers are watching, as well the ability to create specialized, interactive programming for AT&T’s mobile customers that he expects other distributors will copy. Still, he suggested that his ultimate goal is to create a wireless network using next-generation technology known as 5G that competes not just with wireless providers, but with cable companies, by providing high-speed broadband and television service. “I will be sorely disappointed if we are not going head-to-head” with cable providers by 2021, he said. That notion may be both attractive and unattractive to regulators.

You sure have to hand it to the Russians. They understand the power of free-flowing information, how it can upend government and politics. It’s why they don’t let information flow too freely in their own country. And it’s why, if United States intelligence assessments are correct, they have worked so hard to send it roaring through ours. There is a certain kind of brilliance to the way the Russians are said to have hacked the email accounts of senior Democratic officials and gifted the contents to their BFFs at WikiLeaks. The Russians seem to be using the United States’ free press — a great symbol of our democracy — against it while setting up an impossible choice for American newsrooms: Run with the stolen and in many cases unverified correspondence and potentially assist an audacious Russian attempt to disrupt a presidential election, or decline to print it and betray their mission to combat the great political fog machine.

AT&T has bought one of the remaining crown jewels of the entertainment industry, agreeing to buy Time Warner, the home of HBO and CNN, for about $85.4 billion. The deal will create a new colossus capable of both producing content and distributing it to millions with wireless phones, broadband subscriptions and satellite TV connections. The proposed deal is likely to spur yet more consolidation among media companies, which have already looked to partners to get bigger. Time Warner’s deal with AT&T is likely to face tough scrutiny from government regulators increasingly skeptical of power being consolidated among a few titans. Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, indicated that he would seek to block the merger if elected “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”
AT&T-Time Warner deal could spur more mergers, scrutiny

A cable and internet provider decides to buy an entertainment conglomerate. The merger is met with skepticism by industry analysts and outrage by consumer groups, who complain that it would thwart competition, create unfair pricing and incite more media consolidation. That was 2009, when the cable giant Comcast announced it would acquire NBC Universal. When the next administration in Washington takes up the $85.4 billion deal between AT&T and Time Warner, the Comcast acquisition will be used as the lens to examine the changing media landscape.

In the end, the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission approved the acquisition of NBCUniversal, requiring some small management concessions but few divestitures. But AT&T and Time Warner will probably face a much sterner test. With a huge wireless business, too, the combination would be a new kind of media juggernaut. Donald Trump has already condemned the deal. Campaigning in Gettysburg, he Trump said he would block it if he were president, “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has promised to be tough on corporate megapowers and consolidation. Regardless of who wins next month, the AT&T acquisition of Time Warner will be among the biggest and most important regulatory cases to await the next administration. The merger would make AT&T unmatched in its size and reach to consumers through smartphones, home broadband, satellite television and a broad portfolio of cable channels and movies. For that reason, it may raise more cautionary flags than Comcast’s merger with NBCUniversal, which did not involve a wireless carrier.

Ecuador cut off Julian Assange’s access to the internet in his exile in the country’s London embassy, making clear that it feared being sucked into an effort to “interfere in electoral processes” in the United States by the activities of the WikiLeaks founder.

Ecuador is not evicting Assange from its embassy, where he sought asylum four years ago. It said that its “temporary restriction” of internet services to Assange “does not prevent the WikiLeaks organization from carrying out its journalistic activities.” But it was clearly intended to keep the embassy from being the control center for that leaking operation. “The government of Ecuador respects the principle of nonintervention in the affairs of other countries,” it said in a statement, “and it does not interfere in the electoral processes in support of any candidate in particular.”

Documents released in the Hillary Clinton email investigation show intense disagreement in 2015 between the State Department and the FBI over whether some of Clinton’s emails should be considered classified, including a discussion of a possible “quid pro quo” to settle one dispute.

The new batch of documents indicated that in one particular case, a senior State Department official, Patrick F. Kennedy, pressed the FBI to agree that one of Clinton’s emails on the 2012 Benghazi attack would be unclassified — and not classified as the bureau wanted. What remained unclear from the documents was whether it was Kennedy or an FBI official who purportedly offered the “quid pro quo”: marking the email unclassified in exchange for the State Department’s approving the posting of more FBI agents to Iraq.

Donald Trump and other Republicans quickly seized on the new documents as evidence of what Speaker Paul D. Ryan called “a cover-up.”

Nearly 2,000 FM stations across the country have received new licenses from the Federal Communications Commission over the last two years. All are classified as Low Power FM — operating at 100 watts with a broadcast range of roughly five to 15 miles, depending on the surrounding terrain and the proximity of other FM transmissions. About a third are already on the air. All of these new stations have received their licenses free. The FCC’s only requirement was that the applicants be nonprofit organizations committed to broadcasting locally originating programs. The recipients encompass an array of churches, schools, municipal governments, artist collectives and activist groups. Their 100-watt signals pale in comparison to the 50,000 watts that many big commercial stations possess.