Comcast and Time Warner Cable Merger

If they are able to maintain the loyalty of most of their current customers, the companies will then have a shared amount of about 100 million customers. This potential customer volume for the merging companies would greatly outnumber the customer volume of the industry leaders, AT&T and Verizon. This kind of turnout would create greater competition between the two merging companies and the two leading companies (Sprint Wireless News, 2014). Although the outcomes seem promising for Sprint and T-Mobile, there are also potential negative effects of a merger that the companies should take into consideration. Current Sprint and T-Mobile customers have expressed their fear of the possible merger for multiple reasons. The two biggest worries for telecommunication services consumers is the potential for rising costs and a reduction in provider options (John, 2016). In making a final decision, the companies, as well as the Federal Communications Commission, should weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a

Any change in the factors that make up the macro-environment can have a direct impact on the Comcast Corporation. These factors can affect the Porter Five Forces that shape their strategy and their competitive advantage over other firms.

Comcast even included bundle deals for their customers. Comcast sold two types of bundles: television content and services. Content bundles typically included the big broadcast networks, basic cable channels, and a selection of premium cable channels. Bundling decisions could be highly controversial, as the high-profile legal dispute between the Tennis Channel and Comcast illustrated. Comcast elected not to include the Tennis Channel in its basic cable package, which reached nearly all TV subscribers. Instead, it placed the channel in a premium- priced sports bundle, which reduced the Tennis Channel’s advertising revenue. Comcast service bundles typically included television, Internet service, wireless voice, and sometimes even home security

The FCC’s move will allow companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to charge internet companies for speedier access to consumers and to block outside services they don’t like. The change also axes a host of consumer protections, including privacy requirements and rules barring unfair practices that gave consumers an avenue to pursue complaints about price gouging.

In September of 1996 superstores Staples and Office Depot, had developed a proposal to merge, in the following month the companies had gone and met with the FTC to let the agency know that both companies had an intention to merge into one company. Both Staples and Office Depot are both office-supply stores, and had decided to merge in order to keep the costs low as well as keeping their consumers happy. The FTC, however, didn't like the companies' idea of merging so the staff decided to launch an investigation of the proposed merger in order to determine if the companies would violate the anti-trust laws. This, however wasn't approved by the FTC, and a lawsuit was soon followed, questioning the companies, which resulted with both Office Depot and Staples challenging the FTC's decision vigorously. This case was set before both an administrative judge and a federal judge. However, the federal judge was considering whether or not to issue an injunction during this time.

The federal government has recently filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Time warner for trying to vertically merge together. The reason why the government is filing a lawsuit against the merge is that AT&T- Time Warmer will be able to demand higher prices for consumers to receive networks such as TNT, TBS, and CNN. AT&T makes the argument that this vertical merge has earned the green light from the government in the past. For example, in 2011 when NBC and Universal merged together as a vertical merge the government approved it but the Justice Department and the FCC set a variety of conditions in order to approve the vertical merge between the companies. The DOJ also argues that by completing this merge the companies will raise cost to consumers

preserves the free speech of the Internet. This will allow the ISP’s to compete without

1. Given the current situation and the threats facing TiVo, the chief executives must rapidly decide upon the most favorable course of action. The decision is rather difficult to make for the simple reason that each of the three alternatives stand alone, tie up with Comcast or third, content distribution reveals both benefits as well as limitations. However, given the existent constraints, the second solution seems the most adequate one for the following advantages it creates:

When the rise of cable television began there were many local broadcasters who were worried about what sort of financial state they would be left in once audiences decided to switch over to much larger networks. Time went on and many attempts at regulating cable companies became bigger and bigger issues. The larger networks could reach across the nation, and by doing so would have effectively rendered the local network useless. The people were growing weary of the services provided by the cable companies, as well as the price at which they had been charging for those services. Realizing that this could become a greater issue Congress endeavored to settle this debacle by making the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992. This law would require cable providers to set aside channels so that local or public broadcasters could take place in the vacant airwaves, which would effectively keep them all from going out of business under the pressure of larger cable networks. The Federal Communications Commission would be responsible for any sort of actions to be taken to ensure that the Act was properly set into place. For those who worked under local and public broadcasting this was the greatest kind of victory, but not everyone was happy about the decision to enact this law. The Act caused many dissenting opinions within the cable industry as they appealed to the courts with the intention of proving that a must-carry policy is unconstitutional. (Ugland,

Our case study titled, The AT&T and McCaw merger negotiation, provides us with an opportunity to negotiate the terms of the merger between McCaw cellular and AT&T. McCaw was the largest competitor in the rapidly growing cellular telephone communications industry. AT&T was the dominant competitor in long-distance telephone communications in the United States, and one of the largest corporations. Prior to the negotiations, it had no position in cellular communications.

AT&T is a telecommunications company who owns DirecTV, a satellite TV and Internet provider; they compete with Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile for phone service, and suddenlink, Dish, Comcast, and Netflix for television. Time Warner is a media company who owns several television networks and film studios, and they compete with NBC, Wald Disney, and Twenty-First Century Fox. For the companies, they would want to describe their respective industries more broadly; this would allow them to appear as smaller parts of their industries. For the government regulators and the FCC, they would want to describe the companies' industries more narrowly. The regulators want the merger to be in the public's interest. Around the time of the merger, AT&T's stock,

Threats from outside of the company have forced Comcast to start evaluating what they need to do to adapt, change and grow their company in the future. Comcast now has increased

Kathryn, you make an interesting point that some mergers of technology companies fail due to incompatible systems, and clearly the AOL and Time Warner merger is an excellent example, but I believe the problem extends well beyond the these types of companies (Bradt, 2015). One of the key take-aways from that disastrous experiment was that in order to meet proposed synergies, organizations must become fully integrated. This level of integration involves IT and requires that IT management be “at the table” during key decision points.

The Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the "Communications Act"), and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations and policies also significantly impact Comcast’s decision on the company's businesses, including cable system and broadcast station ownership, video services customer rates, carriage of broadcast television stations, broadcast programming content and advertising, package of programming to customers and other providers, access to cable system channels by franchising authorities and other parties, the use of utility poles and conduits, and the offering of high-speed internet and phone services (Marketline, 2013). Failure of Comcast's businesses to comply with the laws and regulations may result in administrative enforcement actions, fines and civil and criminal liability. In as much that laws, policies and regulations are much stricter in the U.S. this would present significant risks to the company's businesses which may affect its operating

According to a press release published by AT&T, the deal will combine "Time Warner's vast library of content and ability to create premium new content that connects with audiences around the world, with AT&T's extensive customer relationships, world's largest pay TV subscriber base and leading scale in TV, mobile and broadband distribution."