A couple of months ago, AT&T and Time Warner CEOs spoke with senators about their proposed $85.4 billion merger. They told the senators that being allowed to control both the content and the delivery system of that content would not adversely affect consumers. Considering that, there is not a single shred of evidence that either AT&T or Time Warner has ever done anything that wasn’t in the interest of consumers. The FCC’s new chairman Ajit Pai has decided that his job doesn’t include doing his job.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, Pai said today that the FCC won’t be reviewing the deal, because by his interpretation, it doesn’t fall into the FCC’s wheelhouse. AT&T has always said that because the deal will involve no transfer of wireless spectrum licenses, the FCC doesn’t need to look at it. Pai seemingly agrees with that view, and therefore the FCC won’t be looking at the deal.
That makes the deal far more likely to be approved. For the FCC to sign off on a deal, the commissioners have to agree that the deal is in the public’s best interest. That’s a far higher bar than approval from the DoJ, which just has to conclude that the merger doesn’t break anti-trust law.
Sen. Al Franken has already been pushing on Time Warner and AT&T executives to actually explain how this merger helps consumers. Chairman Pai is doing what all Republican minions do: deregulate and allow big business to do whatever they want. The good news is that if you are a billionaire you are probably going to make more billions as it looks like one of the regulatory gatekeepers is fine with just leaving the doors wide open.