Unlike in Dallas, where some have pounded the drums ceaselessly about just how marvelous that AT&T-Time Warner merger would be, there’s a different view in Southern California (where I’m attending a business conference this week). Michael Hiltzik, a much-awarded business columnist for the Los Angeles Times, argued yesterday that AT&T/Time Warner would be a bad deal, saying that it’s “been crystal clear since the deal was announced about a year ago that the government should block the proposed merge.” Here’s a money quote from Hiltzik’s reporting:
The prospect is that, if only AT&T complies with the Justice Department’s lone politically motivated demand over CNN, the merger will be approved. “Every citizen ought to be interested in finding out if there’s been political pressure applied,” says former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, now a senior advisor to Common Cause. “But that shouldn’t sidetrack us from the fact that this deal is bad for consumers, bad for competition, bad for innovation, bad for the country in general. It’s far too much power for any one company to wield in a democratic society. It ought to be unacceptable on its face.”
