Like many people, media moguls today are trying to figure out how their worlds will change following Donald Trump’s unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.
They have little to work with: Neither candidate spoke much about media business-related issues during the campaign, though Trump famously said that he would try to block AT&T’s $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner. What’s more, Trump’s positions often shifted — or, politically savvy observers say, will have to shift once he takes office.
“People who think they know what is going to happen don’t know what is going to happen,” says media and telecommunications policy expert Andrew Jay Schwartzman.
But here’s how things look as the smoke clears from the long, and bitter, campaign:
POTENTIAL LOSERS
Media dealmakers: Part 1. In addition to his opposition to AT&T’s agreement to buy Time Warner, Trump said that mergers like Comcast’s with NBCUniversal “destroy democracy.” It’s hard to imagine what big deals might pass muster with the Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and the FCC if appointees to the agencies share that general view.
See more at Deadline
