WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) joined Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and other Senate Democrats to put pressure on AT&T and Time Warner to prove that their proposed mega-merger is in the American public’s interest.
Troublingly, because of how the two companies have signaled they are structuring the deal, they are no longer legally required to prove that their consolidation would serve the public interest—which Sens. Booker, Franken and their colleagues believe is necessary.
So in a letter today to both AT&T and Time Warner’s CEOs, Sens. Booker, Franken and 11 of their colleagues said that American consumers deserve to know if this deal will be good for them.
“To achieve greater transparency for regulators, lawmakers, and American consumers, we ask that you provide us with a public interest statement detailing how you plan to ensure that the transaction benefits consumers, promotes competition, remedies all potential harms, and further serves the public interest through the broader policy goals of the Communications Act,” the Senators wrote. “We maintain that further consolidation in the telecommunications and media industries should only be permitted if it results in better and more affordable services for consumers across the nation, and we look forward to working with you to achieve this critical goal.”
You can read a copy of the letter by clicking here.
AT&T is the second largest mobile broadband provider and one of the nation’s leading content distributors, with more than million pay-TV subscribers. Time Warner is one of the world’s largest TV and entertainment companies, owning networks such as HBO and CNN. By combining, these two companies would create a media conglomerate with the incentive and ability to harm competitors, and as a result, consumers.