Dive Brief:
- Newly minted FCC Chairman Ajit Pai told an audience at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the agency doesn’t expect to review the deal between AT&T and Time Warner as reported by the International Business Times.
- The reasoning offered for the statement was that the deal excludes transfer of airwave licenses which places it outside of the FCC’s purview. As a result, the only review of the merger likely to occur will happen under the Department of Justice, which is expected to approve the deal.
- Time Warner said recently it is selling off an asset — an Atlanta TV studio — a move that makes it possible for the company to avoid prompting an FCC review.
Dive Insight:
Even though the FCC isn’t required to review the Time Warner, AT&T deal, similar previous deals in which large companies impacting a significant number of consumers were involved led to review under a different FCC regime, including the proposed Sprint and T-Mobile merger in 2014 and Comcast’s bid for Time Warner Cable in 2015.
The FCC under Pai and the newly installed Trump administration is proving to be more favorable toward large corporations and has made statements as well as taken concrete steps that impact consumers such as a recent move to block privacy regulations set to go into place this year. These rules prohibit ISPs from collecting and sharing customer data such as location, children’s information and app usage history without a confirmed opt-in. Pai has also been a vocal opponent of net neutrality rules voted on by the previous FCC board.
A combined Time Warner, AT&T would look to become the first U.S. mobile service to compete nationwide with cable companies to provide bundled mobile broadband and video. By owning content, the new company could innovate on new advertising options, which, combined with subscriptions, will support the delivery of premium content.
