Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion was first announced on February 13, 2014. Since then, the corporation has begun the regulatory review process by filing a public interest statement at the Federal Communications Commission. In order for the proposed merger to gain approval, both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) must find that it is lawful and in the public interest. Despite consistent and vocal opposition by millions of Americans, the chances of the merger being disallowed is slim to none due to the power and influence of the companies. The acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Comcast would result in an increase in market power, a decrease in innovation, and a …show more content…
Controlling such a large portion of the market would give the company unprecedented power and form an even larger monopoly than is already in existence. Comcast’s CEO, Brian Roberts, has admitted that after the merger, Verizon FiOS will be the only competitor nationwide in high-speed internet service (Conlow). The Senior Staff Attorney at Public Knowledge, an organization devoted to the preservation of the openness of the Internet and the public’s access to knowledge, stated:
Consumers are harmed when a single company can use its power as a distributor to control what content and programming people can access nationwide. Such ‘gatekeeper’ power would allow Comcast to raise costs for rivals, keep programming from being available on new online platforms, interfere with the open Internet, control the market for streaming video devices, and charge Internet companies for access to its massive customer base. This merger could have other side-effects as well--such as decreased consumer privacy, worse customer service, and slower broadband deployment.
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This is due to the fact that there no longer exists a correlation between innovation and increased profits. At least not to the degree needed to justify the inherent financial risks associated with research and development (Riordan). While there are examples of the opposite occurring, these exceptions do not involve corporations as greedy as Comcast. Comcast has displayed this greediness time and time again by doing things such as fining customers thousands of dollars over unreturned equipment that was destroyed in a hurricane
By the acquisition, Comcast was clearly investing in content; this is a huge transformation for Comcast. This acquisition signals that they want to get bigger ...
Robert Zimmerman, the senior vice president of business development, for American Cable Communications (ACC) was in the process of looking for a potential acquisition target for ACC. In December 2007, Zimmerman remember a presentation that was made recently by Rubinstein & Ross (R&R). R&R was a boutique investment bank that was well known for doing deals in the media and telecommunications area. During this presentation it was suggested that ACC buy out AirThread Connections (AirThread) which is a large regional cellular provider. The current industry of these companies were moving more toward bundled service offerings and by adding AirThread it would help ACC cover an area of service it does not currently offer. In order to determine if the acquisition should be done an analysis needs to be done.
Of particular importance is the deregulation of the telecommunications industry as mentioned in the act (“Implementation of the Telecommunications Act,” NTLA). This reflects a new thinking that service providers should not be limited by artificial and now antique regulatory categories but should be permitted to compete with each other in a robust marketplace that contains many diverse participants. Moreover the Act is evidence of governmental commitment to make sure that all citizens have access to advanced communication services at affordable prices through its “universal service” provisions even as competitive markets for the telecommunications industry expand. Prior to passage of this new Act, U.S. federal and state laws and a judicially established consent decree allowed some competition for certain services, most notably among long distance carriers. Universal service for basic telephony was a national objective, but one developed and shaped through federal and state regulations and case law (“Telecommunications Act of 1996,” Technology Law). The goal of universal service was referred to only in general terms in the Communications Act of 1934, the nation's basic telecommunications statute. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 among other things: (i) opens up competition by local telephone companies, long distance providers, and cable companies ...
B) The critical issue is that Comcast, the biggest internet and cable provider in the nation, is seeking to become even bigger in merging with Time Warner Cable, the second biggest company in the market. This merger will increase the influence Comcast has on TV channels and internet content providers, leaving consumers with fewer alternatives and will reduce competition to the amount where Comcast will control two thirds’ of the cable TV market and about 40% of ...
In our internal analysis of the merger between Comcast Corporation and Time Warner Cable (TWC) we looked at the internal strengths and weaknesses of the acquired company. By analyzing these strengths and weaknesses we determined that Comcast Corp. proposal to acquire TWC will have potential benefits. Comcast Corporation is already a giant, owning the nation’s largest cable distribution network and TWC is the second largest cable distributor serving roughly 12 million households. A combination of the two companies is said to generate multiple pro-consumer and pro-competitive benefits (Grimes 1).
The proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable would make it the largest provider of cable in America and give it unprecedented market power and allow it to continue to pursue profits and the cost of consumers. While it would not be a monopoly, it would be giving the company dangerous power. Already Comcast has control of one of the largest media providers in America, NBC. It has significant control of internet as well, and has made Netflix pay Comcast to have faster speeds. The question now isn’t if the merger will be bad for business, it is if the United States government will make the right choice for
Management practices are highly followed in today’s workplace and for good reason since evidence suggests successful companies follow these strict practices. Regulating employees through a program that is setup to promote success is what the five management practices are about. Discussed will be the management practices of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling and how they relate to the corporate environment of Comcast Corporation through my personal experience.
Such a union would give AT&T a new avenue of growth and combine Time Warner’s premiere entertainment assets, including Warner Bros., HBO, and Turner, with the powerful DirecTV, wireless, and broadband distribution. Officially, the motivation behind the deal goes beyond of company growth, and its more oriented to “give consumers what they want” (Brodkin, 2017). In my opinion, this merger is motivated mostly by market expansion and control. With the merger with Time Warner, AT&T will be able to exert some pressure over the competition not only with traditional competitors like Verizon, but with new ones like Comcast, by offering a wider range of services concentrated in one company. In this case, both companies are in the same location and same industry, only in different sectors. Even when the merger already passed shareholder’s votes, the government has not given green light to the transaction. President Donald Trump voiced opposition to the merger during last year's presidential campaign, promising to reject a deal he said would result in "too much concentration of power in the hands of too few." (Kludt
Internet providers have never had any plans to block content or to try to degrade the performance of the network.” (Hart 750). Essentially, they think having the internet without any laws would be in general more beneficial. The parties who support the keeping of net neutrality and its laws include tech giants such as Netflix, Mozilla Foundation and Consumer Federation of America. Their arguments are that “they are concerned about the potential discriminatory service from providers. Telecommunications companies should be required to provide all the consumers equally regardless of their geographical location or income. If the FCC stops regulating, providers can decide to stop offering services to lower-income families or to poorer neighborhoods. Also, in the absence of regulation internet access providers will adopt a non-neutral
Net neutrality in the past couple of years has become a hot topic for politicians and the legislation throughout the government. According to Guo, the topic of net neutrality has caused an uplifting amount of concern from content providers. Kasperkevic states that big name companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Reddit participated in an action day to save net neutrality. These big-name companies do not want the government to change the net neutrality rules as they know it’ll cause more fees from internet companies to them. Kasperkevic interviewed Charles Duan, a staff attorney at Public Knowledge, during which he stated that a world taking away net neutrality would be like UPS delivering a package from Amazon faster than
...ales: There is lot of changes in the recent times in the market. One if the biggest decline in recent times is DVD sales. Time Warner is mostly dependent on the DVD sales. But now a day in the market no one is using the DVD. This really affected the company’s revenue.
Cutting costs by competitors is the most logical way for competitors to be more competitive in the market. By cutting costs, there are more profits to be made and to gain market share by offering lower cost substitute products. The industry is flooded by competition, but no other competitor of Apple really focuses on creating great technical upport or brand loyalty. (Elliot, 2014)Apple’s primary focus is to develop innovative products and create a unique product that consumers can depend on the being the most highly anticipated technological device while offering great service and support for these new products. Apple uses business model innovation which introduces new products that are compatible with each other such as iTunes and the iPhone or ipod. This has proven to be a very effective business model and competitors are trying to replicate the same model to their advantage. (Jakab, 2015) By being an innovator and first mover on this type of technology, it gave Apple the competitive advantage in the market. In order for competitors to be more effective in the industry, they must attempt to gain customer loyalty and offer a simliar business strategy to that of Apple if they are to be the industry
Comcast Cable’s intent during the next five years is to continue increasing their market share by providing superior customer service to their existing customers and any potential customers. They will continue building their customer base through increasing residential and business service accounts. Comcast will continue
In fact, some of the biggest threats to the company’s growth are the government’s regulation that increases the risk to the underlying business. In addition, the risk of losing the exclusive contract for the iPhone would be a major loss for AT&T. Most of the consumers choose AT&T because of their exclusive contract for the iPhone. Hence, this loss of business will significantly influence the AT&T's profitability and revenue. Moreover, the antitrust authorities play an important role on approved the merger of AT&T.
No company that falls behind the competition is guilty of standing completely still. But sometimes our efforts fail because of the level of commitment to change. – Tom Kelley and David Kelley Organizational Issue BlackBerry, formerly known as Research in Motion (RIM), was a market leader and innovator for smartphone products. The business and government sectors found the BlackBerry device particularly useful because of its email capabilities, superior security system, and convenient keyboard. As the smartphone industry began to shift its focus towards the average, everyday customer, competition increased, and BlackBerry’s first-mover advantage began to decline.