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Article: Time Warner-Disney Flap Jeopardizes Future Media Mergers.
- Article from:
- Kiplinger Business Forecasts
- Article date:
- May 4, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline:Michael Doan
Time Warner's electronic standoff with Disney this week will make it harder for futurelarge media mergers to get past regulators. Although trustbusters are bound byantitrust and telecommunications laws, they are also political appointees who respond topublic pressure. And little moves the populace as fast as the kind of TV station blackoutthat Time Warner imposed on millions of its cable subscribers when price negotiations withDisney fell apart.
"Politicians will paint this as the big greedy companies struggling with eachother and consumers caught in the middle," says Don Boudreaux, an antitrust analystfor the Foundation for Economic ...