Reaction to AT&T swallow of Time Warner swift

LOS ANGELES — Reaction was swift Saturday on news that wireless giant AT&T was set to swallow up Time Warner, the home of CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. studios and the Big Bang Theory TV series, for $85 billion.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he'd oppose the merger, if elected, saying "deals like this destroy democracy."

On the Twittersphere, commentators had fun with the images the combined powerhouses have produced over the years, mixing Warner's Superman character with the phone booths of AT&T's landline past.

Analyst Rebecca Lieb suggested that for all the money being spent on joining forces, coming together is "not guaranteed to buy happiness."

Many pointed back to the initial Time merger, when the then-Time powerhouse of magazines (since shed), cable TV (also shed) and entertainment programming joined forces with AOL, in a disastrous $164 billion deal that renamed the company AOL Time Warner.

The stock value went on to tumble from $226 to about $20 billion. Time Warner eventually got rid of AOL in 2009 and went back to being called Time Warner.

The biggest issue with that merger came down to culture, said Lieb. "The companies didn't know how to deal with one another."

Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, said the deal raises a wide range of consumer concerns, including privacy.

"A new stranglehold is being placed on our communications landscape, as already dominant cable and telephone monopolies devour former partners or competitors," he said. "Through the growing capability of mobile phones to follow and geo-target us everywhere we go — the supermarket, while in a car, or even on the street, these new broadband ISP/mobile/TV giants are extending their powerful digital tentacles further into our lives."

The proposed merger is in response to wireless competitor Verizon, which picked up AOL and has proposed adding Yahoo to its portfolio to enhance its content. It also comes after Comcast joined forces with NBC Universal.

"There is huge competition between the companies that control the pipes," said Lieb. "They want content right now."