AT&T

The Department of Justice on Friday moved to prevent AT&T from arguing that politics played a role in the government’s decision to stop its merger with Time Warner Inc, a deal that President Donald Trump had publicly criticized. “There was no selective enforcement,” Justice Department lawyer Craig Conrath said at a pre-trial hearing. “The president is unhappy with CNN. We don’t dispute that. But AT&T wants to turn that into a get-out-jail-free card for their illegal merger.”

AT&T is demanding that the Justice Department hand over additional evidence to prove that President Trump did not wield political influence over the agency as its antitrust enforcers reviewed the company’s bid to acquire Time Warner.

The company is requesting that Makan Delrahim testify in the trial over the government’s decision to block its $85 billion merger with Time Warner, according to two people with knowledge of the pretrial activity.

The company, one of the biggest marketers in the U.S., hasn’t returned to the platform because of concerns that its ads could appear with offensive content.

AT&T’s CEO touted the upcoming next-generation version of DirecTV Now, set to debut this spring, as a way to open up a new market for the vMVPD service. “With new functionality, we think we can get higher penetration,” Randall Stephenson said during the company’s 4Q earnings call Wednesday. “We’re actually very bullish on DirecTV Now. We’re convinced the economics will continue to improve as we move over the next couple of years.”

Telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon are racing into the digital advertising space — currently dominated by Google and Facebook — now that Washington has given them the ability to sell data to third-party advertisers.

AT&T and Time Warner have agreed to extend the deadline for their long-delayed merger until June 21, according to an SEC filing Thursday. The extension should allow time for a verdict in the Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking to block the deal. The trial will begin in March. June 21 is the date when both parties can officially abandon the deal.

The judge overseeing the Justice Department’s bid to stop AT&T from buying Time Warner said Thursday that he would deny a request to tighten protections on confidential data.

Walt Disney Co joined 21st Century Fox on Wednesday in asking the judge hearing AT&T Inc’s antitrust case to strengthen an order aimed at keeping its data private if it is used at trial next year.

The new agreements with cable operators means Newsy’s national news programming lineup is on track to be available in about 40 million U.S. homes by the end of 2018, according to owner E.W. Scripps.

AT&T and the U.S. Department of Justice have been unable to resolve antitrust concerns over the pending Time Warner acquisition outside of court, according to a document filed Friday.

AT&T has started trials in Georgia and a non-U.S. location to deliver high-speed internet over power lines, the No. 2 wireless carrier said on Wednesday, marking its latest push to offer faster broadband service to more customers.

Splitting the difference between AT&T’s request for a trial date in February and the government’s interest in beginning as late as May, the judge in the closely watched antitrust battle said the trial will begin March 19.

At a time of rapid change and consolidation in the media industry, the Justice Department’s lawsuit over the AT&T-Time Warner combination is likely to put a pause on media deals and raise questions about this DOJ’s antitrust standards.

A day after his Justice Department sued to stop AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner, President Trump weighed in on the potential impact of the deal on the country. He said he’s not going to get involved in active litigation, but then added: “Personally, I’ve always felt that that was a deal that’s not good for the country. I think your pricing is going to go up. I don’t think it’s a good deal for the country. But I’m not going to get involved. It’s litigation.”

The Department of Justice is suing to block AT&T’s $85 billion bid for entertainment conglomerate Time Warner, setting the stage for one of the biggest antitrust cases to hit Washington in decades.

Time Warner is the big fish that AT&T is trying to catch, but the telecommunications giant has another investment that could turn into a valuable streaming content and distribution play once all of the pieces are in place.

AT&T says it hired media lawyer Daniel Petrocelli, whose clients have included President Donald Trump, to defend its acquisition of media and entertainment company Time Warner if the government sues to block the deal.

AT&T remains in discussions with the Justice Department about the telecom giant’s planned $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner and is still confident it will be able to seal the deal, AT&T CFO John Stephens said at a Morgan Stanley investor conference in Barcelona on Thursday.

A swoon has left Time Warner with a market cap of $68.1 billion, well below the $85.4 billion AT&T agreed to pay for the media-entertainment conglomerate.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, testifying today at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, pushed back on recent reports suggesting the politicization of the government’s review of the AT&T and Time Warner merger. Last week, it was widely reported that the Department of Justice asked AT&T to divest Turner as a condition of winning approval, possibly owing to Donald Trump’s distaste for CNN.

After almost a year of review,  everybody seems suddenly gobsmacked that the Justice Department had serious reservations about  the $85 billion Time Warner merger.

AT&T has filed a trademark application for the logo, Watch TV, which would be used for an app that streams content to a variety of devices, including computers, tablets and televisions.

AT&T Inc. will try to dig into whether the White House influenced the Justice Department’s review of the company’s planned takeover of Time Warner Inc. if the government sues to block the deal, according to people familiar with the matter. In the event of a trial over the $85.4 billion deal, AT&T intends to seek court permission for access to communications between the White House and the Justice Department about the takeover, said the people, who asked not to be named because the deliberations are private.

Everyone knows the president hates CNN — but Trump’s Fox News ally also has multiple bones to pick with the proposed deal.

There are  three major carriage disputes that have left scores of thousands of viewers unable to watch their local channels for more than month: DirecTV vs. American Spirit Media, AT&T vs. Capitol Broadcasting and Dish Network vs. Lilly Broadcasting.

CEO Randall Stephenson disputed claims that he offered to sell CNN to win government approval of AT&T’s pending acquisition of CNN’s parent company Time Warner. “I have never been told that the price of getting the deal done was selling CNN. Period. And likewise I have never offered to sell CNN,” Stephenson said. But AT&T is also getting ready for a possible court battle, he said.

The Justice Department told AT&T that it wanted the telecom company to sell its DirecTV satellite unit or Time Warner’s Turner, which houses CNN, TBS and TNT, to get the deal approved. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said: “I have never offered to sell CNN and have no intention of doing so.”

The Justice Department is actively considering a lawsuit to challenge AT&T’s planned acquisition of Time Warner, according to people familiar with the matter. The department’s antitrust division is preparing for litigation in case it decides to sue to block the deal, these people said. Simultaneously, the department and the companies are discussing possible settlement terms that would lead to the deal winning government approval with conditions attached.

Seven groups from both sides of the political spectrum asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stop AT&T from buying Time Warner if, the groups wrote, “as it appears, [the proposed deal] would substantially harm competition, [we urge the government] not to allow it to go forward unless those harms can be effectively prevented.”

In the last 10 quarters, or 30 months, U-verse has lost 2.254 million net video subscribers. AT&T had indicated that it was converting U-verse customers to its DBS service, which has far lower wholesale programming costs, though it has also moved some U-verse subscribers to the DirecTV Now service as well.

AT&T and Time Warner have pushed out the closing deadline for their $85 billion merger as the companies are still seeking antitrust approval from the Justice Department. After the Oct. 22 deadline passed over the weekend without the deal being finalized, the companies filed with the SEC to extend the termination period for a “short period of time to facilitate obtaining final regulatory approval required to close the merger.”

Starting next month, AT&T says U-verse TV subscribers will no longer be able to stream live channels and On Demand programs at Uverse.com.

As a new SEC filing from AT&T shows, traditional video bundles are on the decline, while streaming bundles are on the rise. Can the new opportunities that streaming bundles represent offset the decline in the traditional business?

A month-long retrans impasse between AT&T and Dispatch Broadcast Group has been settled. A new three-year renewal has returned Dispatch’s CBS affiliate WBNS Columbus, Ohio, and NBC affiliate WTHR Indianapolis to DirecTV and U-Verse. Terms were not announced. DirecTV also ended its dispute with Denali Media Holdings.

AT&T, the parent company of DirecTV, will report losing 90,000 video customers when it discloses quarterly financial results this month due in part to cord-cutting, the telecommunications company said Wednesday in a regulatory filing. AT&T, which is still awaiting final approval on its $85 billion merger with Time Warner, said it will lose 390,000 traditional video subscribers but gain 300,000 to its over-the-top digital service.

DirecTV has dropped seven American Media Stations and AT&T has dropped another four stations carried on its U-Verse platform. 

While the American TV Alliance says retrans is “totally rigged” in favor of the broadcasters, the broadcasters target AT&T for “greed that has led it to cannibalize its own [U-Verse] service and mistreat its own customers.” AT&T also owns DirecTV.