US: AT&T CEO says he won’t sell CNN as antitrust tension rises

AT&T won’t sell CNN and never proposed such a deal, CEO Randall Stephenson said as a battle escalated with antitrust officials over the US$85.4 billion acquisition of the network’s owner, Time Warner.

The unexpected fight is exploding over CNN, which has been a regular target of President Donald Trump’s Twitter attacks against what he calls “fake news.” The Justice Department’s Trump-appointed leadership is now taking a different view of the anti-competitive issues surrounding the deal than predecessors under Barack Obama did with similar agreements. Some lawmakers are calling the uproar over the cable news network political.

Discussions of individual assets, including the division that includes CNN, have come up in talks between the companies and Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The government officials brought up the idea of divesting either DirecTV, the satellite provider, or Turner Broadcasting, which includes CNN, TNT and TBS, one of the people said. Another person said AT&T floated the idea of selling CNN and was rejected.

“Throughout this process, I have never offered to sell CNN and have no intention of doing so,” Stephenson said.

Makan Delrahim, who took up the reins at the antitrust division in September after he was confirmed by the Senate, has signaled he isn’t a fan of settlements that force the Justice Department into ongoing monitoring of companies’ behavior.

Full Content: CNBC

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