>
Article snippet: WASHINGTON — The Justice Department sued to block AT&T’s $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner on Monday, setting up a showdown over the first blockbuster acquisition to be considered by the Trump administration and drawing limits on corporate power in the fast-evolving media landscape. By challenging the deal, the Justice Department is taking an approach to antitrust issues that is starkly different from the Obama administration’s. In 2011, for instance, the department approved a similar deal — Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal — after imposing numerous conditions on the transaction. If AT&T’s bid for Time Warner were to go through, the merger would create a media and telecommunications behemoth. By itself, AT&T is one of the nation’s largest internet and telephone providers. With its 2015 acquisition of DirecTV, the country’s largest satellite company, it also became the largest television distributor in the United States. The combined company would have an unrivaled ability to reach consumers through news and entertainment programming. Among Time Warner’s properties are HBO, the home to “Game of Thrones”; Warner Bros., the studio behind blockbusters like “Wonder Woman” and the Harry Potter film series; and Turner Broadcasting, which includes the news channel CNN and the sports-heavy TNT network. Makan Delrahim, the Justice Department’s top antitrust regulator, said a union of the two companies would harm consumers and weaken competition. “This merg... Link to the full article to read more