Here it is:
If approved by Trump administration regulators, the deal would lead to a new entertainment and technology behemoth.
www.nbcnews.com
Thanks for posting that.
What I think is interesting is the idea expressed in the letter from Rep. Darrel Issa to AG Bondi saying that Netflix/HBO Max's merger would create a company with:
“30 percent share of the streaming market: a threshold traditionally viewed as presumptively problematic under antitrust law.”
But if you go to Bondi's own Department of Justice website and the section for the Antitrust Division, it cites legal precedent for a much higher threshold.
Courts Typically Have Required a Dominant Market Share to Infer Monopoly Power
In determining whether a competitor possesses monopoly power in a relevant market, courts typically begin by looking at the firm's market share.
(18) Although the courts "have not yet identified a precise level at which monopoly power will be inferred,"
(19) they have demanded a dominant market share. Discussions of the requisite market share for monopoly power commonly begin with Judge Hand's statement in
United States v. Aluminum Co. of America that a market share of ninety percent "is enough to constitute a monopoly; it is doubtful whether sixty or sixty-four percent would be enough; and certainly thirty-three per cent is not."
(20) The Supreme Court quickly endorsed Judge Hand's approach in
American Tobacco Co. v. United States.
(21)
The current problem for consumers is we have to subscribe to too many services to see what we want. The question for regulators is: Is consumer convenience better than having multiple competitors?
In this administration, I don't think consumer convenience is even on the radar. The White House has a dog in this hunt---Ellison at Paramount Skydance,
who they hope will neuter CNN the way it appears he's attempting to neuter CBS News.
Even if the bidding had gone in Comcast's favor, I think the administration would have probably attempted to use it to get Seth Myers off the air in exchange for fast-tracking the deal (the way they did with Colbert for Skydance). Comcast (quietly) became one of the corporate donors to the White House ballroom over the past few months.
Netflix has nothing the administration can use as leverage (which is why they're pre-emptively using the word "antitrust" over a 30-plus market share), and Reed Hastings is a major Democratic Party donor. That's what this will hinge on.
He's among the last guys on earth they want owning CNN.
Also...if Trump can't deliver for Ellison, Ellison's kinda f***ed. He owns Paramount, Paramount+ and CBS. He's buyup and breakup bait.
(EDIT: CNN is not part of the Netflix-Warner deal. More coffee.)
deadline.com
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nypost.com
