AT&T-Time Warner Merger Highlights Need for Independent Nonprofit Voice

Last week, Judge Richard J. Leon denied the Department of Justice’s request that the court deny the $85-billion merger of AT&T and Time Warner, one of the biggest antitrust cases this century. The merger was opposed by President Trump, in what some see as a shot at a news outlet he dislikes, CNN. Judge Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, saw the grounds to stop the merger as being “gossamer thin.”
Since AT&T and Time Warner are on different levels of the supply chain, this merger does not necessarily reduce competition in the way, say, a McDonald’s and Burger King merger would. Instead, this type of merger is known as vertical integration. Instead, to block this merger, the government needed to make a case that competition would be reduced in a more indirect way.