AT&T to buy HBO, CNN, and the rest of Time Warner for more than $80 billion.. If successful, AT&T will gain control of huge entertainment and news brands including HBO, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and CNN, and resembles efforts by competing ISPs in recent years to create enormous media conglomerates. »
And one of the biggest deals of all, AT&T is taking over the universe so much so that is will NOW OWN BATMAN..
That is a pretty big deal. Even for Bruce Wayne.
This is a mega merger.. Mega mergers as such often frighten me a bit.. And the thought of BATMAN characters and other DC Comics personalities being used for awful phone commercials is equally horrifying … And you know if they can do it they will..
But interestingly enough, people who hate mergers like this also hate Donald Trump, but the has expressed a desire during his ‘Gettysburg Address’ to somehow halt mergers like this if he becomes president! From the HR report:
Donald Trump expressed that he would not approve the AT&T and Time Warner merger if elected president. “Deals like this destroy democracy,” said Trump during a rally in Gettysburg, Pa., on Saturday, where he discussed what he would do in the first 100 days of his presidency.
Trump also said he would like to break up the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger. He opened up his speech, claiming the election is “rigged” against him and expressed that members of the media “lie and fabricate stories to make a candidate they don’t like look as bad and dangerous as possible.”
The real problem so often seems to be the consolidation of media power.. the powerless small guys have no shot at making it big. Thankfully the Internet came along and changed things, but with the NET being ceded over to the world government powers instead of the United States, I worry about the consequences of nations who could care less about the freedom of press saying what websites the press can have.. And even if you hate the Trump movement, you need to be aware that it is based off of a frustration deep within the United States over big trade deals, big mergers, factories closing, and bills for utilities going up despite the corporate executives making massive Christmas bonus dollars on top of already highly inflated salaries..
And …BATMAN.
God save BATMAN..
AT&T won’t.
