美国国家公共电台 NPR DOJ Set To Block AT&T Takeover Of Time Warner

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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

The Justice Department has told AT&T it will block AT&T's takeover of Time Warner unless the company sells off its TV properties, including CNN. President Trump¹ of course is no fan of CNN. Here's what he said about CNN on a recent trip to Poland.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They have been fake news for a long time. They've been covering me in a very dishonest way.

MCEVERS: And now there are questions about the role, if any, President Trump played in the Justice Department's decision. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik is with us now from New York City. And David, what exactly does the government say are its objections to this AT&T-Time Warner deal?

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE²: Well, the government hasn't said anything publicly. It said today that it, you know, reviews such things privately³ and won't talk about it. But privately, it has spoken with AT&T executives and said that they'll have to either sell off Turner Broadcasting, which is the television division of Time Warner that includes CNN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network. I don't think there's too much concern about how many reruns they show of "Law & Order" but that they have to spin that off, or they have to sell off AT&T's satellite TV division, DirecTV. Both of these are major components⁴ of each of these two companies part of the - that are part of the merger⁵.

MCEVERS: I mean, these are two huge companies - right? - one telecommunications platform. The other creates the content that people consume on these platforms. I mean, why wouldn't the government object to such a corporate⁶ consolidation⁷?

FOLKENFLIK: Well, the government typically has great concerns about what's called horizontal integration⁸ - that is, two companies that do business in the same field. So US Air and United talked about merging⁹, and that was blocked a little over a decade ago because it was too close. There was too much consolidation. In this instance, you've got something called horizontal integration. They might be - excuse me - vertical¹⁰ integration.

These companies might be involved in related fields, but they don't have any real areas of direct competition. And for about four decades - I talked to an expert - media executives - for four decades, basically the federal government has been hands-off. Republican administrations are usually exceptionally hands-off about such mergers¹¹. This really comes as a reversal of government policy.

MCEVERS: Well, since CNN, as we said, has been central to the discussion of this deal ever since the merger was proposed, what is the role of CNN here?

FOLKENFLIK: It's very hard to know, you know? There are people who are concerned about great consolidation in media generally. And yet the question of the motivations of the government are real as they have not yet set them out, the question of whether President Trump, who's shown himself, has even said publicly that when he took office, he thought he directly controlled the Justice Department, which typically operates with a strong degree of autonomy.

And obviously he's been willing to sort of publicly issue directives to the Justice Department about how he wants certain investigations¹² of his own campaign's conduct to be investigated. It's hard to totally credit the idea that he wouldn't in some ways be involved here. But we don't know. And you know, his anger at CNN is palpable. He talks about it a lot. But we don't know what role that played.

MCEVERS: So what could happen next?

FOLKENFLIK: Well, this looks very much likely to be headed to court. The - Randall Stephenson, the CEO and chairman of AT&T, has said today he has no intentions of spinning off or selling off CNN to get approval of this deal, which is what the regulators, the Justice Department say would be required.

So what we're going to have to see if this goes forward is a challenge in court. And you're going to see government antitrust regulators have to lay out what their legal objections are on paper to this, you know, absent some sort of concrete reasons that just haven't been made public and that we don't know yet. The questions of government political interference, particularly by President Trump himself, loom¹³ very large.

MCEVERS: That's NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik from New York. Thanks so much.

FOLKENFLIK: You bet.