Surveillance: Merger Monday Special on AT&T and Time Warner - podcast episode cover

Surveillance: Merger Monday Special on AT&T and Time Warner

Oct 24, 201636 min
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Episode description

Three experts on media and telecom weigh in on the AT&T and Time Warner merger. Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at New York University, says we are at peak advertising and people will pay to opt out of advertising. Craig Moffett, a partner and senior research analyst at MoffettNathanson, says an AT&T and Time Warner deal won't result in cost savings. Rich Greenfield and Walter Piecyk, analysts at BTIG, say we are moving away from watching linear television and moving to an on-demand world with no commercials. Plus, Oliver Hart, a professor of economics at Harvard University and this year's Nobel Prize winner in economics, says he would ask about the efficiency gains of AT&T and Time Warner.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Who you put your trust in matters. Investors have put their trust and independent registered investment advisors to the two and four trillion dollars. Why learn more at find your Independent Advisor dot com. Welcome to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Tom Keene with David Gura. Daily we bring you insight from the best in economics, finance, investment, and international relations.

Find Bloomberg Surveillance on iTunes, SoundCloud, Bloomberg dot com, and of course on the Bloomberg Justin Craig mof At, Michael Nathanson their substantial report on this transaction, and worth shrilled to bring you Scott Galloway from New York University and Stern School with thoughts in the Scott, You and I talked this morning, particularly with Brian Weezer, about cost synergies Moffat and Nathanson degree. You can also dismiss the notion

of cost synergies. But where they go before that is this idea of net neutrality that if you vertically integrate, you've got to offer everything that everybody outside the company as well. Right, Sure, but there might be some ways about that. You might have faster download, you might have enhancements. You might have previews, special special opportunities to get Game of Thrones the night before it comes out if you're an a T and T subscriber. I think there's all

kinds of ways they can play. I mean, HBO now is working in the point of Game of Thrones, but it's not a big count. There's not a lot of mass there is there versus say the huge platform of CNN. Well, it depends. I see a lot of people seeing their parents HBO go um passwords and watching it on this way range. So I think Game of Thrones has probably got more mass, and if you look at the impact it's having versus kind of people just sort of numb and sort of sleepwalking through their day with and on

in the background. I think Game of Thrones is, you know, some of the content they have is not only fantastic content, but will continue to have pricing power such that these people can exit this awful ecosystem called advertising and well, and and that's where we went with Scott earlier David gurd this idea of advertising or no ads. Yeah, hearing that, you gotta think that's bad news for Verizon, which is pursuing a strategy that is fully focused on ads, right.

I generally believe that the advertising ecosystem. I think in America, just like we become numb to mass shootings, we become numb to how bad advertising is. The the constant reload on website pages with this these banner ads that are irrelevant. Look at look at the television ads. If you read if you think that TV is out is targeting you, that means really in the market for a South Korean car, a light beer, and that you're bipolar and have cis

leg syndrome. There's absolutely no targeting taking place in TV. We have seen the end of I think we're at peak advertising and people are going to opt out using technology to say I'll pay fifty cents to opt out of advertising. And when was the ball dropped on that? Gosh, that's that's an interesting point. I don't know what the folk rum was. But at the end of the day, what where you have is now the technology will give people the opportunity to opt out and digest the business

inside of for an entire year for five cents. Do you know how much New York Times gets for littering your newspaper with ads an entire year? They can monetize you to the extent of two dollars and sixty four cents a year. So if they make it easy for you to pay another two dollars and seventy cents for no ads, I think people are gonna start opting out.

There was a note from John Martin the head of Turning to his staff I saw excerpted this morning, saying, you know, I can't do anything, of course until the deal goes through, but start thinking about what you could do with HUD thirty million mobile subscribers, sixty million broadband subscribers, and twenty five million video subscriberies. Bearing that in mind, what what is the what is available to this company if the deal goes through? What what does change in

terms of how they approach the media space? Well, the idea of just having on demand and live TV on an app where you just you just it's just your finger on it and then boom, it's playing, and we don't quite have that yet. This Some of the stuff is pretty cumbersome. It does take some time to figure it out. I love HBoL, love Game of throunds. I have not figured out their pay service on my iPad. I don't know if you guys have I just have to figured it out. And I think there's more of

us out there than people would like to admit. So the the kind of on demand easy. Not only not only on demand over the top, but one of the bets A. T and T is making with their direct TV now is that they noticed six of the consumption of video on their network was live TV. I'm seeing the headlines come out of c NBC in conversation with a head of of A T and T on this

right now. It's eerie to me. Scott Galloway how the headlines are the same as every other merger in particularly Time Warner a O L from another time in place and I get the idea of CEOs are supposed to talk their book. That's all I see here this morning. How do you translate the actions of these CEOs as they move forward with this trans this transaction. Well, one of these guys is hoping it's a good deal. One

of them knows it's a great deal. Jeffrey Jucos. Jeffrey Jucos, It's like, I don't know if this is the best time to sell a condo and Manhattan are the best time to sell time owner, but you know it's a good time. The cable isn't structural decline, and they are taking some outstanding cable assets but nonetheless instructural decline and selling them. He may be ringing the bell at the

high here. I think this is you. This is what you want from a CEO on a board, if you're a shareholder, you want them to time and sell at the top. I led with my first line, Scott Galloway, thank you so much in with New York University, and just thank you again for your important perspective and will get you yo in the Verizon. Trenwick. This is Bloomberg Surveillance on Bloomberg. Rerady. I'm David Garrow with Tom Keane digging into that billion dollar A T and T Time

Warner deal this morning. It's our pleasure to welcome Craig Moffitt to the program, Craig Mofet of Mofet Nathanson, who has just published a note as Tom was mentioning on the deal. And Craig, let me start with the two seas here the rationale for the deal, content and cost savings. Let's take the latter one first. Here when you when you look at the deal so much as we know of it right now, does the cost savings argument makes sense? All night morning, David, What what cost savings? Exactly? I'm

struggling to see the logic for any cost savings. Give me you can shut down and investor relations department and the cost of listing one of the docks on the exchange. But that's about it. There's there's there's not any any particular industrial logic to this being cheaper to run because you put them under one umbrella when you when you look at at atencies hunger for content here? How how complementary is this combination? In other words, is this a logical fit in that regard as a teen going to

get the content of once out of Time Warner. Well, here's the way I would think about it. Um. You know, there's a lot of things you could do with vertical integration. Um you could A lot of people this morning are talking about the theory at least of could you keep HBO or some of the Time Warner properties proprietary to

one of the A, T and T distribution platforms. That's not going to be allowed that It's not clear that would economically make sense anyway, but it will clearly be prohibited, so you won't be able to advantage your distribution because you own content. At the same time, Net neutrality and and rules around so called zero rating or trying to exempt time warner content from usage caps and that sort

of thing will also be prohibited. So it's almost impossible to differentiate your distribution because you own content, and it's almost impossible to differentiate your content because you own distribution. So you end up with two companies that operate side by side, and I suppose they're vertically integrated in concept because they're both owned by the same entity, But there's no real vertical integration in any meaningful business sense here.

It's it's really diversification rather than strategy. What's the regulatory hurdle going to be here this gets kicked down to Washington. Is that a given that the FEC takes it up? And how high hurdle is that going to be? Well, it's a given that the d o J will take it up. There's a lot of question right now about whether or not the SEC actually has any jurisdiction here. Um, the SEC's authority to review deals arises from licenses, and there's a single broadcast station in Atlanta that that Time

owner owns that. I'm guessing they will rapidly try to divest if they can avoid STEC reviews. Are a handful of satellite uplink licensees, but there's nothing really material in Time Warner that that revolves around licenses. So there's still some ambiguity about whether the STC will actually get to get its claws into the steel at all. Anyway, the d J is going to be a tough hurdle. That's a rule of law tests. Um, this is a they're

they're outstaying. There's no parrizonal issues, and that's true, but the vertical issues are really profound. And you've seen an already a tremendous amount of political blowback uh, not only from uh kind of Trump um and uh and but but from across both sides of the aisle. And there's gonna be a tremendous amount of scrutiny. I don't think you can give this deal better than fifty fifty odds being approved. I know Tom wants to get in here, but let me ask you quickly how useful the comparison

to the Comcast deal is. When when you're looking at this one, well, it's useful in some ways. Um, you know, I happen to think that the Comcast deal also was largely diversification, and that Comcast really hasn't on all that much Tom to differentiate what it does in either content or distribution, but virtual owning the other. So in suset

you can think of them both as diversification deals. The difference is Comcast brought NBC at the bottom of the cycle and they bought it for less than nine times EBITDA. A T and T is buying time or at the top of the cycle, and they're buying it a twelve times VODA. So if diversification is all about what price you paid, Comcast paid a much much more attractive price than A T and T. Craig, There's so much to talk about. You and I could go for three hours

this morning. I've got a minute and a half with you. I lead my show open this morning with the word desperation. You nailed that in your research report of moments ago to say that A T and T had to do something. All my radar is up on that Moffatt Nathanson headline. I mean that never ends pretty, doesn't No, you know, it's it's fun. I mean, they've they've gotten bigger and bigger.

And the problem that you get into in these kinds of situations that look, they did direct TV a year and a half ago because they had to do something that would help them support the dividend um, and so they bought a company that generated a lot of cash flow. But direct TV is in a precarious position of being potentially a declining event and they're already starting to lose subscribers and pay TV. You've already got a shrinking wireless

business and a shrinking wire line business. Now you're buying yet another business to try to support the cash flow because direct TV doesn't look like you can do it for long. But all you get is a bigger and bigger and bigger balance sheet along the way. And eventually, as you say, it tends to end badly. Do you

very quickly? Or do you and Michael actually believe the advertising business as we know it will continue to be the cash flow that will support this transaction, or as Scott Galloway just said, the real news is that it will be a no ad world the next number of years. Well, they're certainly an awful lot of questions about advertising, and you know that there's a fundamental theoretical question that you and I could talk about forever about does targeting actually

lead to higher CPM. There's the price of advertising cost for thousand people reached. Does does better targeting actually gilds higher CPMs? Theory says it should because it's better targeted left face or does it lead to lower CPMs, which history says happens every time because as targeting gets better, the opportunity for arbitrage between advertisers get better, and historically that has won out. So there's lots of questions about

the future of the advertising correct. Thank you so much from your busy day, Craig Moffatt with Moffatt Nathanson, we continue. This is Bloomer who you put your trust in matters. Investors have put their trust in independent registered investment advisors to the tune of four trillion dollars. Why they see

their roles to serve, not sell. That's why Charles Schwab is committed to the success over seven thousand independent financial advisors who passionately dedicate themselves to helping people achieve their financial goals. Learn more at find your Independent Advisor dot com. We've of course been looking at the transaction of a T and T and Time Warner. They will sign contracts many I assume, not only to retain personnel, but actually to get this transaction done. They will do it within

a principle and agency basis. Gentleman has just won the Nobel Prize in Economics for thinking about contract theory. We spoke with benk Olstrom of M I T a few days ago and now joining us a laureate from Harvard Oliver Heart Professor Hart. Good morning, good morning, congratulations in

on thinking of contracts in theory. If you were to speak this morning to a T and T executives about this strange principal agency relationship, what would a Nobel Prize winners council be to the management of a T and T. Well, that's besides lower your cable TV bill. Well, that's a that's a difficult question because it's a very complicated transaction, and I wouldn't presume to give them advice without knowing

a great deal more about the transaction. And it's two very large companies, and there are there are many, many, many things going on. I suppose I would probably more ask them questions such as why why are you doing it? What are the efficiency gains from this deal? You know, a lot of people are worried about it because they think, um, it's going to lead to higher prices, that it's really an attempt to increase the monopoly power of the parties

as opposed to being efficiency enhancing. So I would like to know why why they think it will lead to efficiencies? What what exactly they are? Could they be achieved by in some other way, by some sort of joint venture or you know, contract as opposed to a merger. Um, Yeah, that's that's that's what I sorry, would be more questions than answers for me. I'm curious for someone who isn't that familiar with with contract theory, and it's it's still a fairly new field here situated for us, and and

and walk us through the wider applications of it. I know you're teaching the economics department, but you teach with the business school, and you teach in the law school school as well. Just talk about the wider implications of the field itself. Well, Um, you know, contracts are everywhere, and I think they're everywhere in economics because almost all the as that parties make have some sort of contract

behind them. The most interesting cases are where it's some sort of long term economic relationship that parties are getting themselves into. And then, you know, a contract is a way to regulate that relationship as it goes through as it goes through time, instead of having to talk to each other, you know, every day about how we should you were you know what price I should pay for something?

You're you're telling me if if we're talking about a long term relationship, you know, it could be an electricity company that wants to burn coal, so is contracting with a coal mine. You know, we might be talking about a thirty to fifty year relationship. So they want to set out the terms in advance. And I think the way economists think of it is the contract is a

way to maximize the value of the relationship. So it's not just some sort of legal constructed has this is very important economic value that the parties have an interest in arranging their relationship so as to achieve as much as possible from it, and that's the contract is a way to do that very quickly. Here and Professor Hart, I want to make clear that Sandy Grossman is someone that I have immense respect for his work with stiglets, and obviously Grossman in Heart three as well. What did

you and Sanford Grossman do there? What was it that you found nuanced about how we make contracts each and every day? Yes, actually it was it was my I did write a paper with Sandy Grossman eight three, but the one I actually got the prize, I understand that

it was six It was eightiesix paper. The innovation there, I think it was that we realized that when when parties write contracts, and we're talking again the electricity coal example is quite a good one, a long term relationship, it's very hard to anticipate all the things that are going to happen, you know, of a thirty fifty period. It's it's absolutely impossible. So any contract will be incompleted,

will have a lot of stuff missing. And then what we realized was that a key question then is who gets to decide on the things that are missing? And um, what we what we then went on to argue was well, um, that's something that can be decided and advanced. In other words, while you can't decide or putting the contract, all the things that can happen you can decide who's going to decide, and one way you can do that is through allocating ownership of that. It's all more generally um uh, deciding

whether two companies should merge or not. That's going to so in the case of just to give you an example of a T and T by Time Warner, then in the future, when some decision has to be made concerning Time Warner, a T and T will be able to make that decision. We continue with Professor Hart of Harvard, who was an acclaimed teacher and educator and has wandered into a Nobel prize and contract theory. Professor I interrupted you, as only we do on Bloomberg Surveillance. You were my

answers are too long. No, no, no, they're they're very professorial. And also we want tickets to Harvard Yale football. Professor, could you please explain, as you were, long term agreements and how it folds into, as an example, a major media acquisition between a telephone company of ancient vintage in Bugs Bunny in Yosemite, Sam, how does that work? Well, are we to amount Time Warner and yeah, Well, as I say, I I would have to look at the

details more. But my My point is that what my work has been about is how if you acquire a company, you also acquire residual control rights, which means the ability to make decisions in the company you've acquired that previously somebody else was was doing. And this these this transfer of decision rights, this is really what characterizes a merger, that the decision rights have changed. Once company A buys company the company A now has decision rights over what

company B is doing that previously company B had. And it's all it matters because the initial any contract they write doesn't can't specify everything. So these residual decision rights matter. Now, that's the theory. And then to say why that transfer of decision or control rights is important in a particular context, like a t in tee in Time Warner, you have to get into the weeds there. You know, if they want to hire me as a consultant, I'll start thinking

about it, but it would take a long time. I'd really have to roll up my sleeves. You can't. It's yeah. I wanted to ask you about performance based pay. There has been such a movement over these last few years to tie pay more to executive performance, and I wanted to agree to, which that's a no brainer. In other words, should that be the case all the time when you're going through those calculations, one is it we're there not

to tie paid performance. Well, you are now actually asking me about what my colleague, but what my friend and

co winner begged Homestrom worked on. Actually it's not really my thing, but I'm sure he if you asked him that question, he would say that paper performance can be good in for the obvious reason that it can get people to work hard to achieve some goal, but that it can also be bad because sometimes you're trying the pay to the to the wrong goal, or maybe just one of several goals, and it can have a distortionary

impact as people. You know, people may then start focusing on one thing at the expense of a lot of other things, and so you have to be careful that. That's why, you know, the devil is in the details. But I think he's the guy really to to ask

about that. Fair enough. I mentioned to somebody this week and I was going to be speaking with you, and uh she she wanted me to ask you if if you're a Bob Dylan fan, as a matter of joking, But wonder to what you what you plan to talk about in the lecture that you'll be giving in December. Oh well, am I Bob Dylan. Actually, I think members of my family are probably bigger fans than I am the U. I have to say, you know, it would be nice if he shows up. I will not be devon.

I'm still going to go. I'm going to go and get my pride um taking guitar. Go practice it, pest seems, Go practice it, pest seems up the street from Harvard, you know, for a couple of months, and you'll be fine when you get the stock home with your guitar and him, Professor, we've got one minute left. I'm sorry for that. The most honorable thing within your resume and your biography is you'r the chairman of hurting Cats for Harvard Economics for three years two thousands to two thousand three.

How did your contract theory work play out? Is you had to manage the egos of Harvard Economics. It was fantastically helpful. Actually, interestingly enough, because I'm not a natural administrator at all, and so um I actually found it extremely useful when I was negotiating with people who are asking him to do things to know what the you know, my, my,

what their rights and obligations were. So just sort of thinking about you know, when I ask you for examples beyond a committee, Um, is part of your contract with Harvard that you actually have agreed to be on something. Uh. This sound was like kind of trivial, But actually I found it extremely useful. Or actually, in one case, I removed someone from a course that they were teaching, not not one of the regular excuse me, it was this was Smartin Feldstunt. You said, you're out man cus In.

It certainly wasn't him, but I it was somebody who wasn't performing very well. And I it was very helpful to know for me to figure out, you know, I have the right to do that. He doesn't have a right to teach the course. Um, you know that's not the deal. Um. Actually, I I think contractually a lot of the time. This is wonderful, Oliver Hurt, Thank you so much, greatly appreciate it. With Harvard University winning a Nobel Prize in economics, bank holds from m I t

as well, that was wonderful. Was wonderful with both of them. Yeah, I had once in in one week, two separate deans of economics use language that we could not use on radio to discuss their professorial discussions in economics. It can be sports and now joining us Walter Pick Richard Greenfield A B T I G. They're on speaking terms. I believe who won the bet? Did either of you gain this to Rich Greenfield? Who's Richard today? Walter pi Sek or Rich Greenfield? I'm just glad that Walt now has

to deal with media company. You can't imagine the battles that we have over things like this, but we don't let that bubble out in public speaking terms, what you guys do so well And in congratulations to the both of you quoted wildly through the press on Saturday. Let me start with you, Walter Piseck. You guys do the micro economics of the blather like no one I would suggest. Walter pi Seck, the microeconomics is Spray and T Mobile are cleaning the big boys. Clock Am I right on that?

I mean T Mobile reported a phenomenal post paid uh net AD number. The subscriber base is growing a lot. Sprint actually had good numbers for the first time in a long time. And meanwhile there's there's a T and T losing customers and even Verizon has has inverted to law. So yeah, I mean, I think that's what's going on in the wireless industry right now. I look Rich Greenfield at the microeconomics of Time Warner, which is, you know, sell at the top and talking to all the great guests.

We've had today, a terrific valuation. But what is the dynamics of advertising right now for Time Warner and others like it? Look, everyone's fine right now, business is actually okay, but you can see where the lines are going. I mean linear TV ratings TOM are literally collapsing. Uh you know. I think that's the fundamental challenge here is that we're moving away from watching linear television where you get home in a clock and you leave the TV on for

several hours, absorbers twenty minutes an hour of commercials. We're moving to an on demand world where there really are no commercials. And I think this is Time Warner recognizing that, like, the future doesn't look so bright, and they found a buyer who really was interested in the content assets, the HBO and the Warner brothers, and we're willing to suck up the bad code, which is the Turner assets, and they basically said, you know what, we can absorb that,

we'll use it to pay our dividends. But will will We really wanted was Warner Brothers in HBO, but we had to buy the whole thing, which, by the way, that negative outlook is probably not that different as far as the telecom business and what we talked about in wireless UH and buying. So buying this just as some diversity. I mean one of the things that they've been able to put up good numbers because they've been using some accounting on his phone payment plans that have been named

of them to take EBA done. Earnings look good, but without out you know, it's basically about diversification. Now, Really the most important thing today is that this is not a read through that everybody else is going to get acquired in media land. This was a very unique buyer looking at a very specific ACPKA. I don't think anybody else is getting bought on this theme, Walter Price. You

know Richard Greenfield's courage and securities analysis. He proved that with Vantage a million years ago, and now he's the Pinata on Disney with his very negative view on Disney Walter pricech who's going to be dumb enough in your world to try to acquire Walt Disney? Is it Mr Cook and Cooper Tino? Well, that's that's certainly a name that gets bannered about, um, you know, and like Disney is a major company, you know, it's it's hard to say whether Apple has introduca so On. I think was

was quoted. I think it was on CNBC saying no one else's has actually talked him. I think it's his quote with something like I can park my car out in the curb and if someone actually kicks the tires, does that really kind of like checking it? So I don't I'm not sure that that Apple or Google, just because they're big and everyone always lists them as a potential buyer, I'm not sure we should we should look

for them to make a meaningful UM move. I think at this point, I'm I think they've talked about the TV and even the car in the past. But you know, you scrape the service, You take a look at things and you see if you can do something. Just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you make a major deal. And let's think about Apple for a second. They both do big deals. Beats was like the shocker for everyone. It was four three billion dollars. Have they

really done any other large acquisitions? No, Rich can talk about Google. Yeah, I was gonna I'm just gonna say there was. There's been so much talk of this sort of North South agreement. Rich, Who's who would be left for an Apple or Google? Well, look, Disney's a hundred and fifty billion dollar company. So assuming you know, even if the stock continues to fall as we think it will, you know, if you're buying it, you're still probably buying

it for a hundred and seventy billion dollars. That's even a pretty big deal for the companies that we're talking about them. And yes, you've got five hundred billion dollar companies, but that's a very major shift of your entire business. For Google to own theme parks and cable networks really hard to imagine. I certainly don't think Facebook is going there. That's just not the way they look at the world. And so you know, when you look at the smaller companies,

look Foxes owned by the Murdock's family. They're not for sale via comin CBS are gonna e Memrge together we believe owned by the Redstone family, not for sale. There really is nobody else that that would give you scale of content creation. I mean when you think about the Discoveries and the A m c s and the scripts, is like these are small that these wouldn't accomplish if if the goal is great content, meaning Warren Brothers and HBO in this transaction, all of those other assets don't

get you that really unique high quality content creation. You know, well just just quickly here A T and T of course headquartered in Dallas, and I wonder when you look at the complimentarity of these these two companies, how big a factory is that? Is that geographic thing going to play here? That the fact that A T and T is based there? Uh, you know, how seamlessly integrated can these companies be without the case, you know, a Surer bought Time Warner. They're having a lot of those people,

particularly the WiFi area, move out to Denver. But in this case, I think A T and T looks at this as a wholy owned subsidiary. I'm not sure that's something that that they're going to mess with. I think you need to keep the talent and the management teams, you know, for these assets where they are, so I don't I don't think the cultural issues that might exist where you're moving people to Dallas um really pertaining this particular action. What was really excited though, about the next

Batman from here? I mean, come on, you know we played Yosemite, Sam and Bugs Bunny earlier, and I mean, come on, folks there, iconic Rich Greenfield. There's assets on the Time Warner balance sheet. Are they all priced into this hundred and seven dollars? A yeare? I mean, is it priced well? I mean, Tom, you're paying a really full price because you're getting this great content that you and from from Warner Brothers, which has Hanna bar Barrett,

the DC comics, Harry Potter's branches. I mean, there's so much great I p within Warner Brothers. But remember half the company is linear Legacy Basic Cable Network, TBS, TNT, True TV. You know see, I mean there's a lot of stuff that has challenged and really duck in the Legacy bundle, and so you look, there's some great assets

in there. It's why we were we were arguing for a long time that the way to maximize value was to split the company into HBO Warner Brothers and then Turner on the other side, and Jeff resisted, and you know what, in the end he proved us wrong because he found somebody who was willing to buy everything. Yeah, who's Walter. Who's the next distributor to buy this? I thought Jim ransoms ye Young Ransom's note deject draw research

was brilliant on this. There's got to be another guy out there to buy the next media conglomerate, is it Google? I mean, look, Horizon has said they want to keep things small. I mean they're they're they're they're buying stuff like a O well that that time Warner has cast

aside and they're not looking for a big transaction. Um, it's possible to rise in as you kind of approach the ultimate retirement of their CEO Low mcgannum may change that strategy, but for now and looks like they're going to get involved that we've already talked about Apple on Google. I mean rich very quickly here the idea of our regulated cell phone cash flows being distributed to buy the legacy of Bugs Bunny and the newness of season whatever it is of Game of Thrones. I mean that's really

what this transaction is, right. I think what everyone forgets is when you line up on a chart the major distributors or platforms, whether we're talking Google or a t NT or Verizon versus the entire legacy media industry. All the companies that you know, whether it's Viacom or Fox or Time Warner, they're all pimples relative to the size

of these tech platforms and distribution platforms. There's just a whole different size and scale, and I think we often lose sight of just how small the media world really is, despite all of our excitement of seeing and enjoying some of the contents. Well, very quickly, here the only company that pays more for lobbyists than fors ands a T and T when you handicap the regulatory heardlier, how high hurdle is that. I don't know if this is stacked,

but I think Google probably spends more than all. Right, there you go. I think I think that week to have some dollars in the DC world as well. So on the regulatory side of things, I think the key thing to focus on is whether the f c C can have a formal review of this and use this very important administrative law judge. Basically you know level that they can pull up. This is just a d o J issue. I think a T T has got a pretty good shot at making their arguments. Tom. You also

didn't mention one other stuff, which is Netflix. And so when you think about you're looking at distributors buying content creators, but there's also content creators may look to buy Netflix because that gets you distribution. So someone like Disney looking at something like Netflix could be really interesting, and I

think that's probably why Netflix is up today. We want to say content companies and distribution getting together maybe maybe something we hear more about, but from different directions we have to go. But congratulations to both of you on your quotes through all media over the weekend. Walter Pisek, Richard Greenfield VT. I g with it just like Monson, Nathan Usin David gurl just a terrific synthesis of real world experience. Both of them have enjoyed losing money, which

is the only way to gain wisdom. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast. Subscribe and listen to interviews on iTunes, SoundCloud, or whichever podcast platform you prefer. I'm out on Twitter at Tom Keene. David Gura is at David Gura. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio. Who you put your trust in matters? Investors have put their trust and independent registered investment advisors

to the two and four trillion dollars. Why Learn more and find your independent advisor dot com

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