Economic Commentary on Comcast's Prospective Acquisition of Time Werner Cable

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

A monopoly is advantageous to the society and is encourages by the government if there are high fixed costs and very strong economies of scale. At the same time, it could also lead to unequal distribution of wealth; containment of consumer choice; lobbying and unethical spending.

By definition a Monopoly is exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices (Monopoly 2012). Individuals are often time fearful of a company or industry becoming a monopoly because it would control too much of a market share, and do whatever wants; this includes raising prices, to using excess capital to branch into even more areas (Rise of monopolies 1996). The market structure of a monopoly is characterized by; a single seller; a unique product; and impossible entry into the market (Tucker 2011). A monopoly can be a difficult thing to accomplish being that a single seller faces an entire industry demand curve due to the fact it makes up the industry as a

In Derek Thompson’s article “Prisoners of Cable” (Thompson, 2012), Thompson wrote why consumers in the US were the prisoners of the cable bundle. In this essay, I will provide a brief analysis of the article written by Derek Thomson and discuss about how the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable and AT&T and Time Warner apply.

Comcast has only trialed this product in select Northeastern US states. Demand is currently unknown in other regions. Competition is low, but this does not necessarily present and opportunity for high demand.

Comcast Corporation is facing strong new competition in markets where it used to have none. Comcast has

I think there will be no market concentration occurred as a result of this merger/acquisition. Because due to this acquisition the monopoly of the other giant company in this business will be reduced. This will lead to increase the price competition.

Although this seems standard, granting increased access to customers would severely impact competition within the market. Yet, as AT&T’s CEO argues, "This is not the T-Mobile deal; there is no competitor being removed from the marketplace…Time Warner is a supplier to AT&T. It's a classic vertical merger.” Thus, the telecommunications giant is attempting to make the argument that the deal would be friendly for consumers. However, promising to differentiate acquired services is a slippery slope that could inevitably lead to higher prices for

The first article I chose was called “FCC approves AT&T – DirecTV merger”, written by Jacob Kastrenakes. AT&T paid around $49 billion in order to acquisition DirecTV, which was approved by Federal Communication Commission (FCC). AT&T is the second-largest wireless carrier in the United State and DirecTV is the largest TV provider. By combining these two firms together will have around 26 million TV subscribers and will create the largest pay TV Company in the U.S. A reason Federal Communication Commission (FCC) approved this merger was because the combined firm promised to serve new rural customers. Under the terms of the merger, “DirecTV shareholders received 1.892 shares of AT&T common stock, in addition to $28.50 in cash, per share of DirecTV”.

In the mid 90’s, the U.S. government deregulated the telecommunications industry. Since then, several companies have entered the market. The intention of deregulating the telecom industry was to promote competition and lower prices. Through mergers and acquisitions, there are only four major companies still standing. “The Big Four” consist of: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. Over the years, these companies have engaged in questionable tactics to increase their profit margins and boost shareholder value.

The word monopoly derives from the Greek meaning (monos μόνος (alone or single) + polein πωλεῖν (to sell). A monopoly is a market structure in which there is only one supplier of a product and/or service for which there is no competition or close substitute – a true testament to its Greek meaning. This paper will take a closer look at the Monopoly Market Structure and how it affects/impacts businesses, consumers, prices as well as supply and demand.

Monopolies are a group of business people who act as one. Any firm that has a monopoly structure will have the most price control for its goods. The firms that operate in competitive structures will have no control over their prices. A firms’ capacity to control the prices of its goods is called price management. This is a critical element in market structure. Monopolies have no public ownership. “When the competition is low and a company is dominating the demand curve it creates a monopoly because

United States law looks to possible anti-trust effects as a result of mergers. First, a merger may diminish competition by reducing the number of firms selling in the relevant market so that they can more successfully engage in coordinated interaction that injures consumers. Second, a merger may create a firm with sufficient market share that it can

Monopoly is the market structure which is just the single firm or a company which is selling in the market. This is the situation which tends to appear in products and services of a one company which is leading in the market as their goal is to increase the profit and it depends on the characteristics of the market where the product has to be unique and different than others. This is the case where they are targeting to increase their profit and make the right source of income from it because the competitors are not found and there are no close substitute which brings to them as there are barriers

Comcast NBC is a very transcendent company. Comcast is the global telecommunications company who owns the National Broadcasting company. NBC started out owned by RCA and then by GE before being owned by Comcast.The corporation is very healthy with the current ratio increasing year to year and the debt ratio decreasing yearly. The Return on Equity also skyrocketed 17 % from 2016 to 2017. NBC has an approach to their company to continue to grow their corporation by focusing on the National Football League and then combining that with other hallmark sporting events such as the Olympics and the Super Bowl. This method of synergizing these two ideas has helped Comcast NBC to become one of the most profitable sports broadcasting companies. The Super