Trump Says He Would Block AT&T-Time Warner Deal
October 23 2016 - 11:40PM
Dow Jones News
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he wouldn't
approve a proposed merger between AT&T Inc. and Time Warner
Inc., citing his opposition of further consolidation in the media
industry.
"AT&T is buying Time Warner, and thus CNN, a deal we will
not approve in my administration because it's too much
concentration of power in the hands of too few," he said at a rally
in Gettysburg, Pa., on Saturday. Mr. Trump said the deal is "an
example of the power structure I am fighting."
AT&T, the country's second largest wireless company, reached
a deal this weekend to acquire Time Warner, one of the largest
content companies in the U.S. with networks like CNN and HBO,
according to people familiar with the transaction. AT&T also
owns DirecTV, one of the largest pay-television firms.
Mr. Trump also said he never would have approved Comcast Corp.'s
2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal, which similarly combined content
and distribution companies.
Comcast's "purchase of NBC concentrates far too much power in
one massive entity that is trying to tell the voters what to think
and what to do," he said. "Deals like this destroy democracy. And
we'll look at breaking that deal up and other deals like that. This
should never ever have been approved in the first place."
While Mr. Trump couldn't block the deal himself, AT&T's Time
Warner acquisition would likely face review from federal
authorities under the next presidential administration.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has also taken a
tough stance on consolidation. While she hasn't publicly commented
on the AT&T deal, she wrote in an op-ed last year that she
would "prevent concentration in the first place by beefing up the
antitrust enforcement arms of the Department of Justice and the
Federal Trade Commission."
Write to Ryan Knutson at ryan.knutson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 23, 2016 23:25 ET (03:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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