Internet and tv provider, Cox Cable Vice President Suzanne Fenwick testified against the Time Warner purchase by phone, Internet and video provider, AT&T. She said that she was concerned that Cox could lose a large number of subscribers if Cox and Time Warner could not reach an agreement as to carriage rates for Turner programming if AT&T bought Time Warner.
Sling TV Group President Warren Schlichting expressed his own considerations if Sling had to pay higher prices for Time Warner content and had to either raise prices or lose channels, they would probably lose subscribers who would likely go to Dish’s main competitor, AT&T owned DirecTV.
Sling is owned by the Dish Network, the second largest satellite TV company in the United States. The biggest satellite TV company is DirecTV, already owned by AT&T. Schlichting testified that the merger would give Turner greater bargaining power as other, smaller cable and satellite companies.
Greg Rigdon of Comcast Cable was also called as a witness and for his part said he had “no reason to believe [the deal] would impact my negotiations with Time Warner or HBO.” One has to wonder if Comcast's more or less support of AT&T has anything to do with the fact that Comcast owns a considerable amount of content themselves. There has already been talk that some of Comcast's concessions to get approval to buy NBC would be extended.
