European Union Okays AT&T-Time Warner Merger

According to AT&T, the European Union has approved its merger with Time Warner.

"We appreciate the skilled work of the European Commission’s team for their timely effort to analyze and clear the AT&T-Time Warner merger,” said AT&T senior executive VP Bob Quinn.

On this side of the pond, Time Warner shareholders approved the deal last month.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department continues to vet the deal, while the FCC is not doing so after the companies structured it so that no FCC licenses changed hands.

President Donald Trump as a candidate threatened to block the deal. "As an example of the power structure I'm fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few," he said at a campaign event last fall.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.