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S. HRG. 113–824 

THE AT&T/DIRECTV MERGER: THE IMPACT ON 

COMPETITION AND CONSUMERS IN THE VIDEO 

MARKET AND BEYOND 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ANTITRUST, 

COMPETITION POLICY AND CONSUMER RIGHTS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JUNE 24, 2014 

Serial No. J–113–66 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

CHUCK SCHUMER, New York 

DICK DURBIN, Illinois 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

MAZIE HIRONO, Hawaii 

CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa, Ranking Member 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

KRISTINE LUCIUS, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

KOLAN DAVIS, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ANTITRUST, COMPETITION POLICY AND CONSUMER RIGHTS

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

CHUCK SCHUMER, New York 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah, Ranking Member 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

CAROLINE HOLLAND, Democratic Chief Counsel 

BRYSON BACHMAN, Republican Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

JUNE 24, 2014, 2:36 P.M. 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page 

Klobuchar, Hon. Amy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota ................... 1 

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont, 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 105 

Lee, Hon. Michael S., a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah ............................. 3 

WITNESSES 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 37 

Downes, Larry, Project Director, Georgetown University, Center for Business 

and Public Policy, Washington, DC .................................................................... 12 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 84 

Keyser, Christopher, President, Writers Guild of America, West, Inc., 

Los Angeles, California ........................................................................................ 8 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 57 

Lieberman, Ross J., Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, American 

Cable Association, Washington, DC ................................................................... 14 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 96 

Stephenson, Randall, President, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, 

AT&T Inc., Dallas, Texas .................................................................................... 7 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38 

White, Michael, President, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, DIRECTV, 

El Segundo, California ......................................................................................... 5 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47 

Wood, Matthew F., Policy Director, Free Press, Washington, DC ....................... 10 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

QUESTIONS 

Questions submitted to Larry Downes by Senator Klobuchar ............................. 110 

Questions submitted to Ross J. Lieberman by Senator Klobuchar ..................... 111 

Questions submitted to Randall Stephenson by Senator Franken ...................... 112 

Questions submitted to Randall Stephenson by Senator Klobuchar ................... 106 

Questions submitted to Michael White by Senator Klobuchar ............................ 108 

Questions submitted to Matthew F. Wood by Senator Klobuchar ...................... 109 

ANSWERS 

Responses of Larry Downes to questions submitted by Senator Klobuchar ....... 113 

Responses of Ross J. Lieberman to questions submitted by Senator 

Klobuchar .............................................................................................................. 118 

Responses of Randall Stephenson to questions submitted by Senators 

Franken and Klobuchar ....................................................................................... 119 

Responses of Michael White to questions submitted by Senator Klobuchar ...... 129 

Responses of Matthew F. Wood to questions submitted by Senator Klobuchar ... 131 

MISCELLANEOUS SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

(AFL-CIO), William Samuel, Director, Government Affairs Department, 

June 25, 2014, letter ............................................................................................ 133 
Page

IV 

Communications Workers of America (CWA), Larry Cohen, President, June 20, 

2014, letter ............................................................................................................ 134 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and 

National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB), Hilary O. 

Shelton, Director, NAACP Washington Bureau, and Senior Vice President 

for Policy and Advocacy, and James L. Winston, NABOB Executive Director 

and General Counsel, June 23, 2014, letter ....................................................... 135 
(1) 

THE AT&T/DIRECTV MERGER: THE IMPACT 

ON COMPETITION AND CONSUMERS IN THE 

VIDEO MARKET AND BEYOND 

TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2014, 

UNITED STATES SENATE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ANTITRUST, COMPETITION POLICY AND

CONSUMER RIGHTS, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:36 p.m., in Room 

SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Amy Klobuchar, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Klobuchar, Franken, Blumenthal, Lee, and 

Cornyn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, 

A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Good afternoon. Welcome to this afternoon’s hearing. We are here today to examine a proposed merger 

that would combine the second largest and fifth largest video providers in the country. It is also a combination of two top competitors in their respective industries: satellite television and wireless 

phone service. 

DIRECTV has a large national presence with 20 million video 

subscribers, second only to Comcast’s 22 million subscribers. 

AT&T is one of the Nation’s top two wireless providers with 116 

million subscribers. AT&T’s video service, called ‘‘U-verse,’’ has a 

more limited reach with 5.7 million subscribers, but it is the fastest-growing cable service in the country. AT&T also continues to 

grow its wireline and broadband business. 

We are not here today to judge whether the merger is better for 

the bottom lines of these two companies or their shareholders. We 

will leave that to them and to Wall Street. We are here today to 

make sense of what this will mean for consumers—consumers who 

are feeling the squeeze as their cable, satellite, and broadband bills 

rise, consumers who want better and more choices for the type and 

amount of programming they are offered, and consumers who want 

more online video options. 

The proposed combination of AT&T and DIRECTV in many respects appears to combine services that are largely complementary. 

AT&T has the broadband and wireless capabilities that DIRECTV 

lacks, and DIRECTV has a top-performing video service with the 

scale AT&T needs to lower its programming costs. 
2 

These points have merit, and AT&T’s promise to expand its 

broadband reach, especially into rural areas, is a compelling aspect 

of this proposed deal. But our inquiry cannot stop there. We need 

to ensure that these benefits will not be outweighed by diminished 

competition or harm to consumers. 

We know that robust competition keeps prices in check, 

incentivizes competitors to offer better choices and service, and promotes innovation. Yet this merger will result in some consumers 

losing a choice of video providers. AT&T and DIRECTV currently 

compete head to head in roughly 25 percent of the country, including large metro markets such as Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San 

Francisco, and Atlanta. AT&T and DIRECTV say that together 

they will be able to offer a better bundle of Internet and video service to compete against cable company bundles. 

But the fact remains that this merger will eliminate a competitive video provider, so we need to ask: What is the competitive dynamic in these markets? Will fewer competitors mean higher prices 

and lower-quality service? Will AT&T actually pass the cost savings they get from lower programming costs to consumers? And 

will AT&T have the incentive to continue to expand its competitive 

and fast-growing U-verse video service? 

Consumers are also impacted by consolidation of pay-television 

providers because it means fewer outlets for independent programming. Will taking out one of the video distributors that writers and 

independent programmers have to pitch their new TV programs or 

channels to ensure consumers will have access to diverse programming? Both in this merger and the Comcast/Time-Warner Cable 

merger, we have heard concerns from the small independent content providers about the risks of consolidating down to just a few 

large video distributors. 

Beyond the video market, AT&T is a dominant player in wireless 

phone service. Earlier I mentioned consumer demand for online 

video. People are consuming more and more video on their mobile 

phones. As this happens, video content will become an important 

commodity to wireless providers. 

That brings us to an aspect of this deal that has sports fans talking, and they like to talk. Assuming DIRECTV renews its deal with 

the NFL, AT&T will have the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket 

package. It has expressed a desire to be able to offer that programming to its wireless subscribers. How will AT&T’s improved access 

to highly desirable content through its leverage of 26 million video 

subscribers impact the competitive landscape of the wireless market? 

Finally, when discussing this merger, we cannot do so in a vacuum. The potential merger of AT&T and DIRECTV comes on the 

heels of the proposed combination of Comcast and Time Warner. 

These proposals have led to speculation that programmers, such as 

Viacom and CBS, will seek to merge. 

Now, big is not automatically bad and can often be good in the 

right circumstances for economies of scale. But this consolidation 

poses a fundamental question: As broadband, video, and wireless 

markets begin to converge, what telecom ecosystem will best serve 

consumers both in the present and in the long term? What will be 

the tipping point when it comes to consolidation? 
3 

These are the kinds of questions our Subcommittee as well as the 

antitrust agencies ought to keep in mind when evaluating this 

merger and weighing what the future holds for consumers. 

These are the types of issues we are going to be discussing this 

afternoon. We look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and now 

I turn it over to my Ranking Member, Senator Lee. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL S. LEE, 

A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF UTAH 

Senator LEE. Thank you, Madam Chair. Today’s hearing, of 

course, involves AT&T’s recent announcement of its intention to acquire DIRECTV. AT&T and DIRECTV are well-known and very 

successful companies. AT&T is primarily a provider of mobile and 

fixed telephone, but it has in recent years made impressive inroads 

in the markets for video and high-speed Internet. 

DIRECTV, on the other hand, is a satellite video provider. It has 

grown to become one of the largest multi-channel video programming distributors in the country with currently around 20 million 

subscribers. 

The companies do not, for the most part, compete in the same 

markets. The primary products offered by these two companies are, 

for the most part, not substitutes but, rather, they are complements. Mergers of complements have the potential to create efficiencies that a merger of substitutes may not, and such transactions have traditionally been approved. 

This merger has, nonetheless, attracted attention. The markets 

for video and Internet are extremely important to consumers, and 

this transaction is occurring just months after Comcast and Time 

Warner, two large players in the markets for video and Internet, 

announced their intention to combine. 

In addition, AT&T and DIRECTV do offer substitute video products in some parts of the country, and the transaction has the potential to affect the competitive landscape in those areas. 

As always, the guiding principle for our antitrust analysis is consumer welfare. Indeed, as Robert Bork wrote in ‘‘The Antitrust Paradox,’’ ‘‘Competition must be understood as the maximization of 

consumer welfare.’’ 

In antitrust, as in other areas of public policymaking, competitors often stand to benefit from Government regulations or restrictions imposed on their rivals. As much as any other entity, competitors to merging parties have a constitutional right to petition 

and lobby the Government. They often have valuable information 

and insight into markets that will be affected by the proposed 

transaction at issue. And in many cases, competitors simply want 

to ensure that antitrust enforcers protect competition and ensure 

a level playing field. 

At the same time, history and experience have taught us that 

competitors can and often do seek to use the antitrust process to 

gain an advantage for themselves. It is, therefore, essential that we 

remain on guard to ensure that the government process not be 

used to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. Where our 

policies and our approach to antitrust ensure that free markets operate effectively and consumers choose the winners and losers, we 

obtain the very best outcome for the country. 
4 

Applying these principles to this transaction will require a close 

look at those areas where the transaction may impact competition, 

such as where AT&T and DIRECTV currently compete for video 

subscribers. It requires scrutiny of the market for programming 

where consolidation is reducing the number of buyers of video content and may potentially impact the range of choice of content that 

may be available for consumers going forward. 

This transaction’s effect on the practice of bundling and the impact of that practice on consumers also merits some discussion. 

Proper antitrust principles, however, also require due weight to be 

given to the procompetitive ramifications of the proposed acquisition. 

AT&T has committed to expand high-speed Internet access to 

some 15 million Americans who otherwise may not have such access. The market for high-speed Internet in some respects is both 

more important to consumers in the long term and suffers from 

less competition than the market for video. This deal may, thus, 

offer some real efficiencies and benefits to consumers, including innovation in a new Internet distribution technology—technology 

that might not obtain if the deal were blocked. 

Markets, of course, change rapidly, and nowhere is this as true 

as it is for markets in technology-drive industries, such as voice, 

video, and Internet. In response to such changing circumstances 

and as we have seen with increase frequency of late, incumbent 

companies may seek to consolidate. In some cases this behavior 

may be part of a nefarious attempt to forestall change to prevent 

new products or new technologies from making an incumbent obsolete. In other cases, however, this kind of behavior simply represents intelligent business planning to adapt to and take advantage of new trends. 

Accordingly, in fast-moving markets, consumers may be harmed 

by Government intervention just as easily as they may be harmed 

by consolidation. And it is essential that in considering important 

transactions, such as the one before us, we apply rigorous economic 

analysis and ground our conclusions in the evidence. By ensuring 

that we protect competition and not any individual company or 

competitor, we can help create market conditions that benefit consumers and promote economic development. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Senator Lee. 

We are going to now start with our witnesses. I also want to 

thank Senator Blumenthal for being here. And I would like to introduce our distinguished witnesses. 

Our first witness is Mr. Michael White. Mr. White is the president, chairman, and chief executive officer of DIRECTV. Before 

joining DIRECTV, he served in a number of management roles at 

Pepsi and as a private management consultant. 

Our second witness is Mr. Randall Stephenson. Mr. Stephenson 

is the chairman and chief executive officer of AT&T. Previously he 

was AT&T’s chief operating officer and a senior executive at Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. 

Next we will hear from Mr. Christopher Keyser. Mr. Keyser is 

the president of the Writers of Guild of America, West. He has cre-
5 

ated and worked on a number of popular television shows, including creating ‘‘Party of Five.’’ 

Do you watch that? 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. You do not have to answer. 

Senator LEE. I do not. I am sorry. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. It is still popular, though, just because he 

does not watch it. It is okay. 

The next witness will be Mr. Matthew Wood. Mr. Wood is the 

policy director of Free Press. Prior to joining Free Press, Mr. Wood 

worked at the public interest law firm Media Access Project and in 

the communications practice groups of two private law firms in 

Washington, DC. 

Then we will hear from Mr. Larry Downes. Mr. Downes is an 

Internet industry analyst and author. He is currently serving as 

the project director of the Evolution of Regulation and Innovation 

Project at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. 

And our final witness will be Mr. Ross Lieberman. Mr. 

Lieberman is the senior vice president of government affairs for the 

American Cable Association, where he represents small- and medium-sized independent cable operators. He previously worked for 

EchoStar Communications, which is the parent company of Dish 

Network. 

Thank you all for appearing at our Subcommittee’s hearing to 

testify today. I now ask our witnesses to rise and raise their right 

hand as I administer the oath. Do you affirm that the testimony 

you are about to give before the Committee will be the truth, the 

whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 

Mr. WHITE. I do. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I do. 

Mr. KEYSER. I do. 

Mr. WOOD. I do. 

Mr. DOWNES. I do. 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I do. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

Okay. Why don’t we begin with Mr. Michael White. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WHITE, PRESIDENT, CHAIRMAN, 

AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DIRECTV, EL SEGUNDO, 

CALIFORNIA 

Mr. WHITE. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Klobuchar, 

Ranking Member Lee, and Members of the Subcommittee. My 

name is Mike White, and I am CEO of DIRECTV. Thank you for 

inviting me to testify on AT&T’s proposed acquisition of DIRECTV. 

For any business to succeed in the long term, it must satisfy its 

customers’ needs better than the competition day in and day out, 

and this transaction will us at DIRECTV do exactly that. By combining complementary assets and products, we will be able to offer 

new services to our customers at a better value. We will help consumers watch the video they want, increasingly when they want it, 

and increasingly where they want it and on the many devices of 

their choice. And we will be well positioned to compete long into 

the future. 
6 

I would like to briefly describe DIRECTV’s perspective on this 

transaction. Historically, DIRECTV is a remarkable American success story. We have competed aggressively, delivering more highdefinition channels, a clearer sound and picture, more advanced 

equipment, and consistently better customer service than cable 

over the years. And, frankly, Congress has also had a lot to do with 

our success, making sure that we could acquire the programming 

our subscribers demanded, particularly in our early years. 

In recent years, however, much has changed, particularly the 

growth of broadband. If we at DIRECTV want to continue to compete effectively in today’s increasingly Internet-driven economy, we 

must adapt as well, in four ways: 

First, we must provide an integrated bundle of services because 

consumers increasingly demand better bundles of both video and 

broadband. And, in fact, broadband is now the more important element of the two for many of our subscribers. 

Second, we must serve those who want over-the-top offerings. 

Young subscribers in particular want services like YouTube, 

Netflix, and Hulu. And you need a broadband platform if we are 

to be able to meet that need as well in the future. 

Third, we must continue to optimize our own video service as 

technology changes. Cable’s two-way infrastructure lets it offer features such as remote DVRs and video-on-demand programming 

stored in the cloud. In fact, soon cable will offer other cloud-based 

features like lookback, and cable operators are increasingly 

leveraging the cloud to improve their service more quickly and easily. We, too, will need to do all of this if we intend to continue to 

compete and keep up. 

And, finally, we will have to continue to effectively manage content cost increases. Rising content costs, far and away the largest 

element for any distributor, challenge all video providers. Yet bundled competitors can handle this somewhat better because they 

earn revenue from multiple services. 

Historically we at DIRECTV have attempted to remain competitive by offering something called ‘‘synthetic bundles,’’ in which the 

video and the broadband are provided by two separate companies 

but marketed together. 

Synthetic bundles, however, make for a bad customer experience: 

customers have to talk to two sales representatives, wait for two 

different installation appointments, pay two separate bills, and 

make two calls every time they have a problem. 

And synthetic bundles are also somewhat more expensive because each company seeks its own margin on its contribution to the 

bundled service. 

We believe this transaction will help us meet all of these challenges head on. It combined DIRECTV’s premier video assets with 

AT&T’s unique broadband and wireless assets. It will mean better 

bundles. It will mean better video. It will mean lower content costs 

because of the additional value we can now offer programmers. And 

it means more and better broadband to 15 million new locations 

predominantly in rural areas. And, finally, it means more innovation, particularly as it relates to wireless video offerings. 

If you put it all together, you get a transaction that lets us better 

serve our customers, unlock incremental growth opportunities that 
7 

will create jobs, and sustain our long-term competitiveness—a 

transaction, in other words, that opens up a world of new possibilities for DIRECTV’s subscribers. 

Thank you again for inviting me today, and I very much look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. White appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you, Mr. White. 

Mr. Stephenson. 

STATEMENT OF RANDALL STEPHENSON, PRESIDENT, CHAIRMAN, AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AT&T INC., DALLAS, 

TEXAS 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Thank you, Chairman Klobuchar, Ranking 

Member Lee, and Members of the Committee. I am Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T, and I also appreciate the 

opportunity to visit with you about what we think are significant 

consumer and strategic benefits of the transaction. 

This is unlike most mergers because it primarily combines companies with complementary products and capabilities—DIRECTV’s 

pay-TV service and AT&T’s broadband service—and the rationale 

for us coming together is really simple: it is about meeting consumer demand. 

Customers are looking for bundles that combine TV and 

broadband service. That is because of the greater value and the 

convenience they get, and it is something that today they do get 

from our cable competitors nationwide. 

Now, as Mike said, DIRECTV has the premier pay-TV service in 

the U.S., but it does not have a broadband network. And to effectively compete against cable for broadband customers, AT&T markets bundles of services, mostly broadband and TV, even though 

our video service is not profitable. In fact, fewer than 140,000 of 

our TV customers—that is less than 2 percent of them—purchase 

TV service on a stand-alone basis. We do not actively market 

stand-alone video because we do not make any money on it. 

Today 60 cents of every video dollar we earn goes straight to the 

programmers. In addition, we can offer video in only a small portion of the country, less than a quarter of U.S. households, and we 

do not even cover all of the broadband footprint that we have built. 

And that is due to technology and economic limitations. 

As a result, there is no significant competitive overlap between 

AT&T and DIRECTV in the products that consumers are overwhelmingly demanding today, and that is a broadband video bundle. The consumer benefits of this transaction are significant. Being 

able to offer DIRECTV nationwide is a game changer as it relates 

to the economics of deploying broadband. It will allow us to expand 

and enhance broadband service to at least 15 million locations 

across 48 States, mostly those in rural areas. This is in addition 

to the broadband expansion plans that we have already announced, 

and it directly results from the synergies created by the transaction. This new broadband commitment includes 13 million rural 

locations, 85 percent of which are outside of our traditional fixedline footprint. 
8 

We think this is really big news for rural America. We estimate 

that nearly 20 percent of these consumers today have no access to 

wireline broadband service and that another 27 percent are hostage 

to only one provider. For many of these 13 million consumers, 

AT&T’s service will be the fastest service available, and for some 

it will be their first chance for truly high-speed broadband. 

The transaction also allows us to expand our one-gigabit service 

to 2 million additional locations, so all told, we will be able to serve 

70 million customer locations with broadband. This transaction will 

allow us to price more competitively and provide consumers a higher-quality experience, which in turn will result in cable companies’ 

pricing more competitively as well in all their products. 

Consumers will receive greater convenience with a single point 

of contact for ordering, installation, billing, and care. We will be 

able to accelerate the development of new over-the-top video services offered by AT&T and Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and so 

many others, and deliver them to any screen. This is the exciting 

part. It can go to a mobile phone, computers, tablets, cars. We are 

even working on delivery to airplanes. 

We operate in a competitive environment that is only becoming 

more competitive. The cable companies already dominate both 

broadband and video, and Google Fiber, Netflix, and even faster 

wireless services are transforming the competition daily. 

This transaction gives AT&T the capabilities to be a more effective competitor to cable, and I want to assure the Committee and 

I want to assure our customers as well that we will do these things 

while meeting or exceeding the FCC’s net neutrality standards and 

extending our best-in-class diversity and labor practices to the employees and suppliers of the combined company. 

So again, thank you for the opportunity, and I look forward to 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Randall Stephenson appears as a 

submission for the record.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Stephenson, 

we also discovered up here that you wrote for ‘‘L.A. Law,’’ and he 

had seen that one. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. I just wanted to make you feel better. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER KEYSER, PRESIDENT, 

WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA, WEST, INC., LOS ANGELES, 

CALIFORNIA 

Mr. KEYSER. Chairman Klobuchar, Ranking Member Lee, I forgive you for not being a fan of my work. You are not alone. Members of the Subcommittee—— 

Senator LEE. I want to be clear I am sure it is a great show. 

Mr. KEYSER. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 

today. My name is Christopher Keyser, and I am the president of 

the Writers Guild of America, West. I have been a working television writer, as you said, for 25 years. 

On behalf of my guild, I have come here today to speak against 

the AT&T/DIRECTV merger, and because I cannot help myself, 

here is a story. 
9 

The writers I represent, more than 8,000 of them, and the members of our sister guild, the Writers Guild of America, East, write 

feature films and local news. But what matters in this conversation 

is that we also create virtually all of the scripted programming that 

you watch on television now or through video services such as 

Netflix and Amazon, and that will become important in a minute. 

That programming is at this moment the most influential creative product in the country and indeed in the world. Nothing has 

the power and the reach of television. 

But two decades of mergers and consolidation have reduced a 

once vibrant market of diverse and independent production to the 

point where now seven companies own 95 percent of what you 

watch on TV. Networks and studios have become one. They control 

both content and delivery. They determine what I am allowed to 

write and what you are allowed to watch. 

Into that world only recently has come the Internet, and suddenly the Internet has opened up a possibility of enormous new 

content and creativity, a host of new voices, new content creators, 

new distributors. Potentially this is the most exciting time for audiences and writers, anyone who cares about diversity and the vibrancy of the creative output of this country. It is a very American 

thing, which brings us back to the merger. 

It is no accident that a flurry of mergers is occurring in response 

to the potential democratization of the entertainment industry. The 

largest multi-channel video programming distributors and Internet 

service providers have every reason to fear and every incentive to 

limit the growth of online video competition that could threaten its 

dominance. 

If this merger and the Comcast merger are approved, the two resulting companies will control more than half of the MVPD subscribers and half of the wired Internet access market. They will 

have unprecedented power to control the content that passes to 

you. 

So what do we know that will happen as a result? Well, we 

know, because they have said so, that they will use their power to 

force content providers to accept below-market rates for their product. It is a stated goal of the merger to reduce affiliate fees. 

So the problem is that these fees have fueled the recent boom in 

creative programming, particularly on cable, and reduced those fees 

through the outside power of monopoly, and the result is less creativity, less product, and less innovation. 

The second thing we should fear and of which we can be virtually 

certain is that a combined AT&T/DIRECTV will follow in the footsteps of Comcast and use its power to discriminate against unaffiliated video content providers. AT&T has already said that it is in 

favor of paid prioritization, because when you control access to 50 

percent of consumers, those who want to deliver their products are 

so beholden to you that they cannot afford to refuse your conditions. And those who cannot or do not pay will find their products 

metaphorically on the hidden shelves in the back corner of the 

store. 

Because the power to control the pipeline actually trumps the 

power to create, it brings with it the power to undermine the revo-
10 

lutionary quality of the Internet itself, and that is precisely the 

issue the FCC is dealing with today. 

The one thing we know as writers is that character is destiny, 

and the character of these companies is not in doubt. You do not 

gain access to half of the market without prioritizing your shareholders over the American people. 

As Comcast/Time Warner begat AT&T/DIRECTV, so, too, will 

this merger beget more consolidation in response. And then the 

merger of content creators, desperate for leverage against two powerful distributors, will come in time. They are already in the air. 

Eventually these behemoths of video distribution will seek, as 

every incumbent media giant has before in history, to own its own 

content or to produce—or to buy other content providers. And the 

Internet, which might have been a new frontier, will become like 

broadcast television before it. And those of us who write for a living, who love stories and the vibrant marketplace of ideas, who believe that a culture is defined at least in part by the quality of the 

art it creates, who believe in the American ideal of limitless voices, 

will mourn a missed opportunity. 

We have seen this story before. We begin it again today, and we 

may believe, or some may tell you, that this time we can change 

the ending. But as a writer, I know this much. If you put the butler 

in line to inherit and you give him a candlestick in the drawing 

room, someone is going to end up dead by the last act. 

I have come here today to ask that regulators make the right 

choice, one that serves the public interest, and deny these mergers. 

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Christopher Keyser appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Very good. Thank you. 

Mr. Matthew Wood. 

STATEMENT OF MATTHEW F. WOOD, POLICY 

DIRECTOR, FREE PRESS, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. WOOD. Good afternoon, Chairman Klobuchar, Ranking Member Lee, and esteemed Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you 

for having me back to talk about this merger and what it means 

for video and broadband competition and consumers. 

Free Press works for open, universal, and affordable Internet access. To do that, we also keep a watchful eye on consolidation in 

media and telecom, and we have had an eyeful lately with all the 

deals that are pending or in the works. 

There is no good reason for any of these mega mergers, including 

this combination of DIRECTV, the Nation’s second largest video 

provider, with AT&T. It is just more concentration, less competition, and the same old promises used to sell these bad deals to the 

public. Each time it goes shopping, AT&T comes before you hoping 

you are ready to believe almost anything and that you have a very 

short memory. 

How else to explain AT&T’s counterintuitive claim that eliminating competitors somehow leads to more competition? How else 

to explain so-called merger-specific benefits that actually have 

nothing to do with the merger and provide no real benefits? 
11 

AT&T has made the same promises for deals stretching back 

over the past decade. It is better at making promises than keeping 

them. This deal would give us what the Department of Justice calls 

‘‘highly concentrated markets’’ everywhere AT&T offers pay TV. 

Going from four choices down to three where AT&T offers video 

today is not a net win, no matter how AT&T spins it. 

If this all sounds familiar, it should. Three years ago, you also 

heard that taking out a wireless rival would increase competition. 

AT&T said T-Mobile was not a real competitive threat anymore. It 

said AT&T could not invest in rural America without that merger. 

Those claims are no more convincing today than they were then, 

and the numbers here, as measured by DOJ, are even worse. 

There are 64 TV markets where nearly all of AT&T’s video subscribers reside. All 64 would be highly concentrated after this deal. 

Antitrust authorities say such mergers are likely to ‘‘raise prices, 

reduce output, diminish innovation, and otherwise harm customers.’’ 

AT&T counters that it would save costs on video programming. 

Yet while AT&T may lower its own costs by acquiring more scale, 

analysts believe the company is overstating those savings. And no 

matter how big they are, there is no guarantee and really no likelihood that AT&T would pass these savings along to its customer. 

Search high and low through the deal descriptions that AT&T 

has filed this month, and if they wanted to make a promise to reduce prices, they could have done so in simple and uncertain terms. 

They did not. 

Instead, AT&T says that over-the-top video keeps prices in check, 

but ignores the control that broadband providers have over these 

online services. And while a growing number of consumers are cutting the cord on pay TV, that number is still small compared to the 

number of pay-TV subscribers that remain. 

AT&T also argues that DIRECTV is not a real competitor because customers only want bundles today. But the idea that this 

deal would let AT&T compete more vigorously against bundled 

cable services is not borne out by the facts. For one thing, customers want choices not forced bundles to make them buy services 

they do not want. And AT&T and DIRECTV already partner to sell 

bundles today, the synthetic bundles you have heard about from 

the other witnesses. But AT&T charges DIRECTV customers more 

than twice as much for broadband in those packages as it charges 

its own U-verse TV customers. If we had working markets and reasonable resale policies, we could promote competition and let people choose their bundles, too. 

With nothing else to offer, AT&T recycles its past promises, 

stretching past that failed T-Mobile merger in 2011 to Bell South 

in 2006, saying mergers let it provide more and better broadband. 

It has not always kept these promises. It has just kept people waiting. And AT&T never explains adequately how these new assurances add anything to its prior commitments and deployment 

plans. It says it will expand broadband at 15 million customer locations after this deal, but 13 million of those get fixed wireless. 

Forget for a moment that this wireless products promised for 

rural America is inferior. Forget that AT&T told consumers last 

month that wireless service was already available nationwide. 
12 

AT&T could provide a serious broadband upgrade if it would stop 

making airy promises and just invest. 

Between the cash, stock, and debt, AT&T would spend nearly $70 billion to acquire DIRECTV. This is wasteful capital allocation 

plain and simple, because AT&T could spend that money to triple 

the size of its current fiber footprint, signing up more video subscribers than DIRECTV has today in the process. 

AT&T may believe that you have forgotten the last time you 

heard these promises, but I do not think that you have. You know 

to look under the hood and not buy a used car based on the new 

paint job alone. So if you hear the only way to promote competition 

is to kill it, you wonder how that could be true. If you hear that 

we need less video competition to get more broadband, you wonder 

why. And if you hear the same company promising better 

broadband is just around the corner, always just one more merger 

away, you wonder when. When will AT&T stop throwing money at 

mergers and start investing for real? 

Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Matthew F. Wood appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you, Mr. Wood. 

Mr. Larry Downes. 

STATEMENT OF LARRY DOWNES, PROJECT DIRECTOR, 

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, CENTER FOR BUSINESS AND 

PUBLIC POLICY, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. DOWNES. Chairman Klobuchar, Ranking Member Lee and 

Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify. 

My name is Larry Downes. Based in Silicon Valley for the last 

20 years, I am an Internet industry veteran and the author of several books on the information economy, innovation, and the impact 

of regulation. 

But for the past 3 years, I have been involved in a research 

project focused on the changing nature of technology, market disruption, and competition performed in conjunction with the 

Accenture Institute for High Performance. Our recently published 

findings demonstrate that technological and market forces have put 

unprecedented and accelerating pressures on incumbent businesses, especially those subject to a long history of regulatory oversight. 

Like many of the industries we studied, the video marketplace is 

in the midst of a profound and exciting transformation—at least for 

consumers and entrepreneurs. For both AT&T and DIRECTV, on 

the other hand, that transformation poses a daunting triple play of 

threats to their current business model: 

Number one, the rise of a few very powerful content and distribution companies, including Disney, Fox, and CBS, have 

weighed the scales in program carriage and other negotiations 

strongly on the side of the programmers, bloating channel bundles 

and raising prices for consumers even as many users demand more 

a la carte solutions. 

Number two, hundreds of largely unregulated, Internet-based 

content providers, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Aereo and 
13 

Netflix, are experimenting wildly with new technologies and new 

business models for producing, collecting, distributing, and monetizing a cornucopia of new and old programming. 

Number three, in developing strategies both to compete and cooperate with these and other threats, AT&T and DIRECTV are severely constrained by decades of policy compromises designed to resolve earlier conflicts between old business models and new technologies. Taken together, they form a sclerotic tangle of interconnected, contradictory, and in many cases counterproductive limits on the ability of both companies to adapt to the accelerating 

pace of change, often for reasons that no longer serve any public 

interest. 

I want to say a little bit more about all three of these, which I 

discuss in detail in my written testimony. But first let us acknowledge that the true driver of change in the media market and the 

real source of competitive pressure is the exploding availability of 

increasingly better and cheaper core technology components—the 

principle known as Moore’s Law. 

Innately familiar with the faster, cheaper, smaller promise of 

Moore’s Law, consumers now demand access to the full range of 

content anytime, anywhere, and on whatever device they happen to 

be nearest. And with the continued deflation of component costs, 

that content and the networks to deliver it will continue to evolve 

from today’s high-definition standard to 4K or ultra-high definition 

and to future innovations. 

This ongoing disruptive innovation means that predicting future 

consumer demand has become largely impossible. Preferred forms 

of bundling and pricing have splintered with each user demanding 

their own unique configuration, one that will change on a whim. 

Already held back by the anchor of a growing regulatory burden, 

new business pressures on regulated multi-channel video programming distributors are now arriving separately and together from 

two principal disruptors: mushrooming programming costs and the 

explosion of largely unregulated over-the-top video services. And 

while the FCC finds that the average price per channel has declined the number of channels continues to expand on average from 

44 to 150 since 1995. Premium channels are often used as bargaining chips to promote less popular content. Cable customers pay 

as much as $6 a month just to cover the cost of ESPN, whether 

they watch it or not. 

The net result is rising prices for consumers, increasing their incentive to cut the cord to MVPD services and look for alternatives. 

Right on cue, unregulated over-the-top content providers are experimenting with abandon, finding new ways to produce, collect, 

distribute, and monetize old and new programming. Netflix alone 

has more than 30 million customers in the U.S., and like other 

OTT providers, has begun producing its own premium proprietary 

content. 

Falling costs for core computing technology also means consumers themselves now contribute significantly to the bounty of 

new content and access choices. Users upload 100 hours of new 

video every minute just to YouTube, and many user channels have 

millions of viewers. Crowdfunding sites are flooded with proposals 

for content production, many of which are oversubscribed. 
14 

These new models are thriving because consumers want more options than the current regulated industry structure makes possible, 

or at least at the clock speed of Moore’s Law. 

Thus, I see the proposed transaction as a largely defensive move, 

one that makes sound strategic sense. To remain competitive, 

AT&T needs the audience DIRECTV has already built. U-verse 

needs larger audiences to improve its bargaining position with programmers and to achieve economies of scale for the content it licenses. 

DIRECTV, likewise, needs the broadband network AT&T has 

built, and to participate in, let alone compete with, the expanding 

universe of OTT services, DIRECTV quickly requires the native 

ability to integrate broadband Internet with produced content. 

With a native broadband offering, DIRECTV will remain a viable 

competitor, enforcing market discipline on cable-based, satellite, 

and other MVPDs. This transaction presents few, if any, of the traditional markers for concern, either under antitrust law or the 

FCC’s public interest standard. The result should be more competitive pressure, both within the supply chain and in the market as 

a whole. 

I thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Larry Downes appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Downes. 

Mr. Lieberman, welcome back. 

STATEMENT OF ROSS J. LIEBERMAN, SENIOR VICE 

PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, AMERICAN CABLE 

ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Thank you. An unprecedented wave of consolidation is occurring within the video programming and distribution 

industries that will transform the competitive market and consumer experience. This is cause for concern. Congress and regulators, therefore, must not only review pending deals; it must also 

examine and act to address the underlying market problems fueling them. 

Focusing on AT&T’s deal, it is important to realize DIRECTV is 

not only a nationwide paid-TV provider, it is also a programmer, 

with interests in three regional sports networks and national programming. This gives DIRECTV an economic incentive and ability 

to charge its rivals higher fees for its programming, especially its 

regional sports networks. 

Smaller cable operators are concerned that this deal will lead 

DIRECTV’s programmers to hold out for even higher rates. With 

26 million subscribers, AT&T and DIRECTV combined will command better programming deals than DIRECTV would alone. This 

means higher video profits for both DIRECTV and U-verse services. 

Regulators have accepted that as the per video subscriber profits 

of a vertically integrated pay-TV provider rise, so does its interest 

in boosting its rivals’ costs for its programming. Accordingly, payTV providers will feel the pinch when negotiating for DIRECTV’s 

programming, and their customers will pay. 
15 

Regulators should not approve the merger without addressing 

this matter. While DIRECTV remains subject to program access 

rules, as an FCC condition from a prior deal, it is no longer subject 

to an arbitration condition. However, readopting this same arbitration condition is not enough. It had design flaws that left smaller 

cable operators underprotected. To shield these operators fully, 

these defects must be eliminated. 

Congress and regulators must also look at the bigger picture by 

reviewing existing rules to ensure that industrywide problems, particularly those driving consolidation, are addressed. This will ensure consumers continue to benefit from a competitive pay-TV marketplace that includes smaller operators. 

ACA members have long raised alarms about large broadcasters’ 

and programmers’ increasing rates and carriage demands and their 

discriminatory pricing practices. The programming costs for a 

smaller cable operator is significantly higher than for a larger provider. The spread, thought to average around 30 percent, puts ACA 

members at a substantial disadvantage to bigger competitors like 

DIRECTV, Dish Network, and Comcast. 

AT&T’s desire to acquire DIRECTV does not surprise smaller 

cable operators. Even though AT&T’s subscriber base nearly exceeds that of all smaller cable operators combined, its modus for 

buying DIRECTV point to it facing similar market problems. Like 

ACA’s members, AT&T also understands its competitive standing 

is likely to worsen if the Comcast-Time Warner Cable and 

Comcast-Charter deals are approved. 

While AT&T can lower its programming costs and better compete 

by buying DIRECTV, smaller cable operators cannot because they 

lack AT&T’s financial scale. Unable to spend their way out of trouble, these video providers will struggle to remain viable. 

Some critics of AT&T’s deal raise concerns about the number of 

pay-TV providers decreasing from four to three in U-verse territories. In rural areas, where three video service providers typically 

exist, programming cost issues have driven some smaller cable operators to closed systems, leaving consumers with only two satellite 

TV providers. 

Although the slow but steady decrease in competition in rural 

areas has not yet generated much concern from Washington, it 

should, because it is harmful to rural America and often signals 

wider market problems. 

These trends are not irreversible. Congress and regulators can 

take action to prevent ACA members and their customers from 

simply being unreasonably disadvantaged compared to their larger 

competitors. 

In conclusion, there are three areas where oversight and action 

would be meaningful: first, by examining and addressing programmers’ discriminatory pricing practices against smaller pay-TV providers; second, by modernizing program access rules by updating 

the FCC’s definition of a buy-in group, which is the way smaller 

operators buy programming; and, third, by updating the FCC’s outdated regulatory fee categories so all pay-TV providers, including 

DIRECTV and Dish, pay their fair share. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 
16 

[The prepared statement of Ross J. Lieberman appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much. 

We will start with you, Mr. Stephenson. You noted in your statement that the merger presents no significant competition overlap. 

Do you consider DIRECTV to be a competitor in the markets where 

you do overlap? I think it is something like 30 million consumers 

and 25 percent of the country. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. To your point, 75 percent of the country, we do 

not compete. In 25 percent of the country, we do have a network 

that can deliver video. As I mentioned in my comments, we do not 

actively market a stand-alone video product, which is what 

DIRECTV sells. We lose money on video. So what we do is bundle 

video with broadband. Video is the vehicle by which we sell and 

market broadband, quite candidly. And so if you look at our customer base of video, 5.7 million, less than 140,000 of those are 

what we would call ‘‘stand-alone video customers,’’ the type of customers that Mike pursues in the marketplace. 

So our video footprint does overlap 25 percent of the U.S., but 

we are a bundle provider. We sell bundles of broadband and video, 

and we sell video only to facilitate selling broadband. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Mr. White, just 3 months ago, you said 

that half of America has ‘‘a very robust telco competitor’’ to your 

service, and we know that AT&T is one of the country’s major telephone companies. In November, you said this was a highly competitive industry and that that has certainly gotten more true with 

the telcos entering the business and being very aggressive. Finally, 

last August, you said the biggest chunk of your new subscribers are 

former cable and telco consumers. 

So do you see this overlap of competition? Are you concerned? Do 

you think that there should be concern for those consumers? 

Mr. WHITE. Well, certainly if you take both Verizon and AT&T 

and you add up the homes passed, I guess you get about 50 million 

homes, so that is kind of half of America, a little bit less than half 

of America, I would guess, that there are homes passed. But as 

Randall said, they are fairly small at 5 million-plus subscribers 

right now. So certainly in those overlap areas, there are—you have 

to look at the pluses and the minuses. And, again, I would start 

with—in any deal, you have to look at the total picture. In our 

case, in the 75 percent of America where we do not compete, there 

is a significant benefit to consumers of 15 million homes that will 

get better broadband. In addition, DIRECTV will be a stronger 

competitor because we will be able to market broadband bundles 

to 38 million homes outside of where we compete. 

In the areas where we compete, I also would argue that the consumer is going to get better choice, because today DIRECTV does 

not have a seamless bundle in those markets, and by the same 

token, AT&T is constrained as to how aggressively they can compete because of their high cost of content. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. One of the things that people are really 

focused on—and certainly we asked a lot of questions in the last 

hearing on the Comcast merger—is what is going to happen with 

the prices for consumers. And in your written testimony, Mr. Stephenson, the only mention of prices about this transaction is that 
17 

it will ‘‘allow us to price all of our services more competitively.’’ 

What does that mean? Does this mean that consumers will actually 

see less costly service? Or does it just mean there is going to be 

downward pressure? And that is what we are trying to figure out 

here, what this means for consumers. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes, we use that terminology ‘‘downward pressure’’ for a simple reason. The largest cost component in the video 

business is content programming. As I said in my opening comments, for every dollar we bill for video, 60 cents goes out the door 

to the programmers before we buy set-top boxes and do customer 

care and send a bill and roll a truck out to provision the service. 

So what drives prices in this industry are content costs, and content costs for all of us are growing roughly 8 percent per year, and 

we are raising rates about half that pace to try to keep up with 

the content costs. 

As we put these two companies together, one of the primary benefits of it is we create a very, very compelling opportunity for the 

content providers. We have a larger video footprint. Mike has some 

very deep relationships with programmers. We believe the AT&T 

content costs will begin—and we feel very strongly—to look more 

like the DIRECTV content costs. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. But does that mean that consumers will 

see the price decrease? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. So in a highly competitive environment like 

video and broadband, when you have margin, the margin typically 

gets competed away. And so when we modeled this—we actually 

brought in an economist who used to serve at the DOJ to model 

this thing for us. His modeling says even before you get to the programming synergies, the bias ought to be downward on pricing. 

There will be downward pricing pressure not just for us but for the 

cable providers as well. There will be downward pricing pressure 

on both their bundles, their stand-alone video, and stand-alone 

broadband products. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. And if you see this downward pricing, 

will the U-verse customers for whom AT&T, as you have noted, 

pays higher programming costs, will they realize the benefit, or do 

you think it will be spread in cost savings out among video, including DIRECTV customers? The cost savings? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. The what? 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. The cost savings that you are going to 

see, are they just going to go to those U-verse customers, or are 

they going to be spread across all the customers? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. There are going to be a lot of cost savings outside of programming. For example, we roll—when Mike sells a synthetic bundle today, he rolls a truck to the house; we roll a truck 

to the house. Mike sends a bill; we send a bill. When a customer 

has a care problem, they call one—two numbers. When you put the 

two companies together, it will be one truck roll, it will be one bill, 

it will be one sales call, and so forth. 

So there are a number of synergies and savings that will go forward as a result of this. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Mr. Wood, do you see it a different way? 

Mr. WOOD. It does not sound like these synthetic bundles have 

been all that well synthesized in some ways because with resale 
18 

you could have a single company taking care of the customer. And 

as I note in my written testimony, it is actually $34 a month when 

you buy AT&T broadband through DIRECTV and $14 a month— 

14 and change—for that same product to an AT&T customer. 

So we think that the bundling is obviously a benefit to some if 

people want to bundle, but the benefits of combining the two companies outweigh—or are overstated and outweighed by the dangers 

of the harm to competition here. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. All right. We have been talking about the 

importance to consumers of price competition and what the loss of 

a competitor would mean, but I want to quickly turn to programming. DIRECTV has and is currently renegotiating the rights to 

NFL Sunday Ticket, which has every out-of-market NFL Sunday 

game. Some commentators have said that this merger is all about 

Sunday Ticket as opposed to some of the people that Mr. Keyser 

represents. 

Does NFL Sunday Ticket, Mr. White, help you differentiate your 

product and compete with cable companies and telephone companies? 

Mr. WHITE. Yes, it does. We have had a 20-year relationship this 

year with the NFL. We both, I think, benefited by that relationship. Our contract expires after this coming season, so we are in 

discussions about extending that contract. And we are very optimistic and hopeful that we will be able to do that. We have an excellent relationship with the NFL. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. And, Mr. Stephenson, your merger is contingent on DIRECTV renewing its contract with the NFL for Sunday ticket. Is that right? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes, that is correct. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. And what are your plans? Would AT&T 

seek to expand the reach of Sunday Ticket to its wireless platform? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. So DIRECTV in the current agreement has the 

rights for their Sunday Ticket subscribers to distribute that content 

to their mobile devices, and when we have, you know, 100 million 

mobile subscribers, we would envision taking advantage of that situation and allowing our customers who also subscribe to the Sunday Ticket to access that on any device anywhere, anytime they 

wanted. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. Anyone else have a different view 

of—okay. Mr. Lieberman, one last question on the sports, and then 

in my next round, I will ask you a few questions here, Mr. Keyser. 

DIRECTV owns three regional sports networks in Pittsburgh, the 

Rocky Mountain region, and the Pacific Northwest. How does ownership of regional sports networks by DIRECTV or any other distributor impact competition? Do you think the DOJ and FCC, if 

they approve the merger, should consider conditions regarding regional sports network ownership? 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Thanks for the question. When a pay-TV provider owns programming, they have an incentive and ability to 

charge higher prices to their rivals. This has been a conclusion that 

has been reached in many transactions in the past, ones involving 

DIRECTV, ones involving Comcast. This is going to be a situation 

that will happen in this deal as well, as a result of DIRECTV owning the regional sports networks, as you note. 
19 

Smaller cable operators carry this programming. They are concerned about their prices for that programming going up, so it is 

important that as part of this deal that the FCC readopt conditions, the way it has been addressed before is through arbitration 

conditions, to address this harm. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. All right. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Lee. 

Senator LEE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. Stephenson, the antitrust agencies’ 2010 horizontal merger 

guidelines confirm an important part of any antitrust analysis involves inquiring into the potential efficiencies that the proposed 

transaction might deliver, that it might produce or create? The 

guidelines state that the agencies will credit these merger-specific 

efficiencies only if they are merger-specific; that is to say, if and 

only if they will occur as a result of the merger and that they 

would not occur in the absence of the merger, or in the absence of 

some other event comparable to the merger in terms of any anticompetitive effects the merger might have. 

And so my question for us is: What procompetitive efficiencies do 

you see associated with this merger? And could those efficiencies 

be achieved in the absence of the merger? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. The primary efficiency that we have talked 

about are the efficiencies from buying programming, content, and 

we expressed to the street an objective of achieving $1.6 billion per 

year reduced costs within 3 years, obviously the lion’s share of that 

being from the programming efficiencies. The other efficiencies are 

what I discussed previously: one truck roll when we provision service, one bill, one customer care call, one sales call. And we have a 

history of putting these types of efficiencies into the marketplace 

and telling our owners our objectives. We have, I believe, a spotless 

record of achieving those efficiencies. 

So we believe the $1.6 billion run rate number is a very achievable number, feel highly confident that we will hit that number. 

Senator LEE. And that part is just from the programming? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. That is largely the programming. The other 

part is from one truck roll to the house, one bill, one customer care 

call, et cetera. And then—— 

Senator LEE. And really quickly on that, what is your response 

to Mr. Wood’s point about the fact that if you synthesize the synthetic agreements better, you could achieve the same thing without 

the merger? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. It is really easy to say. It comes off the tongue 

really easily. Mike and I have tried this for a number of years, and 

we have worked it really hard. I have tried it with Dish satellite 

before, and it is a very difficult thing to accomplish for the simple 

reason that we do expect to make money off our broadband products; he expects to make money off his TV product. So you start 

to stack margins for the customer. 

And what happens when you put the two companies together, 

you gain the efficiencies. It allows you to pull that margin stacking 

out and the customer benefits. At the end of the day, you have a 

more elegant, seamless IT process, care process. It is just a more 

elegant way of doing it. 
20 

Senator LEE. I interrupted you a minute ago. You were making 

a second point. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes, there is another major efficiency and benefit that comes from this transaction, and that is, as I mentioned 

in the beginning, we lose money on video. As we move our programming costs to look more like DIRECTV’s programming costs, 

it changes the dynamic of our video product. We suddenly go from 

video being a loser to a profitable service. And now our broadband 

build is not burdened by a money-losing proposition on video. 

What that allows us to do is to think differently about broadband 

investment. We have the technology—we have been working a long 

time—that we would like to use to roll broadband out to rural 

America. It is wireless based. It gets called ‘‘inferior.’’ It is superior 

to virtually anything that is out there in these rural communities 

today. And when you put a profitable video product attached to this 

capability, this wireless technology, it is going to allow us to build 

broadband, 15 to 20 megabits per second capability, to 13 million 

additional customer locations in rural America across 48 States. 

We think that is exciting. We think it is an exciting opportunity 

for rural America. 

It also changes the economics of our fiber build where we are deploying fiber to the home. We have a significant build in progress 

right now that we are consummating. We are going to add 2 million more homes passed because of the economics, how they change 

on this. 

Senator LEE. This broadband, this is with existing bandwidth 

you have already got, this does not require an additional acquisition of bandwidth? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. The places where we are deploying this, and 

the reason rural is so beneficial is because rural is the place where 

it is not congested, so we have 20 megahertz of wireless spectrum 

that we can put to use with this product now. 

Senator LEE. Okay. Mr. Downes, in your testimony you referred 

to the role of Big Bang disruption in the video market. Can you 

give us some examples of this, of how Big Bang disruption has impacted markets in the past and explain why you think this might 

have some relevance here? 

Mr. DOWNES. Sure. Thank you, Senator. There is an old model 

of how you think about innovation and disruption, and this was 

that new products would enter the market, they would be worse 

but cheaper, and that that meant that the incumbents had time to 

respond and to incorporate those new technologies over a long period of time. And what we found is that sort of, you know, 50 years 

on now of Moore’s Law making computers and a lot of other components better and cheaper, it now comes that new products often 

enter the market both better and cheaper at the same time. One 

of the examples we used was GPS devices and how they were disrupted by apps on smartphones that did the exact same thing better and in that case free, so much, much cheaper. 

And this is happening, it has been happening certainly in communications, in computing, in the entertainment industry for a 

long time. It is now moving into other industries. You know, you 

can now embed computing onto pretty much anything at an ex-
21 

tremely low cost because it is small, it does not use much power, 

and the components are increasingly very, very cheap. 

This I think is what has really driven the massive amount of innovation that happened with over-the-top services. The over-thetop services are great, and it is not just these big companies, not 

just Netflix and Hulu. It is individuals creating their own channel 

and being able to distribute that channel. They can produce the 

content much more cheaply, get high-quality content, even scripted 

content, and be able to deliver that over the Internet at just much, 

much lower cost. That opens up the opportunity for a lot of innovation, and it completely, frankly, catches the incumbents offsides because they are waiting for the worst but cheaper alternative, and 

it never showed up. It was the better and cheaper alternative that 

happened to them. 

Senator LEE. In the seconds I have left, Mr. Wood, do you want 

to respond to Mr. Stephenson’s response to your statement? 

Mr. WOOD. Senator, I was actually thinking about Mr. Downes’ 

question and response, which was that this Big Bang innovation, 

we certainly have an explosion of over-the-top innovation now, but 

it is all flowing over the wires and wireless spectrum that AT&T 

control. So I think that that is what we have to take into account 

when we hear that over-the-top video is an answer. It is an answer, 

but it is not an answer to the lack of competition we see in 

broadband and facilities-based TV. 

And I am sorry, sir, I would be happy to address Mr. 

Stephenson’s points if you have other questions about those, but I 

am not sure which part of those you are after. 

Senator LEE. So his response to your point about the trucks. You 

believe that it was not—the synthetic mergers, the synthetic bundles were not efficient because, as you put it, they did not synthesize them correctly. 

Mr. WOOD. Right. I mean, I think that, again, with a reasonable 

and nondiscriminatory resale market where companies could actually have a single truck roll perhaps or a single bill, the margin 

stacking you are hearing about maybe would not be a problem. And 

at the end—and in response to Senator Klobuchar’s statement, too, 

you do not hear them saying that there will actually be lower 

prices as a result of this. They talk about downward pressure and 

economic theory. But what they are really saying is we will have 

better margins perhaps for our business, we will have lower costs. 

There is no indication that, even if those savings are real, they will 

actually be passed along to customers in any meaningful way. 

Senator LEE. Okay. I will want to followup on that later, but the 

Chair wields a gavel, and I do not want to—— 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. There we are. Okay. Or a candlestick, as 

Mr. Keyser would say. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. Senator Blumenthal. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I am not 

going to compare candlesticks to gavels. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. We could have a whole Clue game going 

on with Mr. White as opposed to Mrs. White, but we are not going 

to go there. 

[Laughter.] 
22 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. I hope this exchange does not detract from 

my time. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. No, it does not at all. Start afresh. 

Senator FRANKEN. I think it should. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Without any disrespect to Senator 

Franken, I am going to play the part of the ordinary consumer, and 

I have great respect for both of your companies and your sincerity 

in the beliefs and the projections you have made about what is 

going to be accomplished by this merger. But if I am the ordinary 

consumer, I am rolling my eyes, because I have seen this show before. In the communications landscape, I have seen mergers, consolidation, and most importantly, inexorably, relentlessly rising 

cable rates. 

So I am very, very skeptical as a Senator, not just as a consumer, 

because you are asking us to make two gigantic leaps of faith: 

number one, that you are going to be able to achieve cost savings 

by driving down the cost of content, and you have testified very 

powerfully that content costs are rising; and, number two, that 

those cost savings are actually going to be passed along to consumers. 

So let me begin with the first. As you know, about content, even 

giants like Comcast and Time Warner have continued to see rising 

costs in their content, and they have been unable to achieve the 

cost savings that you are projecting. Tell me what you are going 

to do to drive down the costs of content when, just looking at the 

cost of sports, 17 percent of a cable company’s programming costs, 

today sports represent 38 percent of a total bill for purchasing content, and the L.A. Times recently found that sports channels represent more than 50 percent of the monthly cable bill, and those 

sports programming costs are rising inexorably. So what specifically can you do? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I am going to start, and then I will let Mike 

tag on. But the first part of it, Senator, is somewhat mechanical, 

and that is, we have 5.7 million customers on the AT&T U-verse 

platform that are paying significantly higher content costs than 

DIRECTV is, and the lion’s share of the content cost savings is not 

necessarily that we are going to drive down DIRECTV’s programming costs. But the AT&T programming costs will look like 

DIRECTV’s over time. We feel fairly confident in that. So what 

that will do—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. You feel fairly confident? Can you commit 

to us that you know it will be true? Do you have—— 

Mr. STEPHENSON. It has got to be negotiated, and we are negotiating with some very good business people who have very good 

business models and they are tough negotiators. But, you know, we 

do believe that when you are a company that has 26 million subscribers in the U.S., 100 million wireless customers who desire that 

content, that you are very attractive to the programmers and the 

content developers, and so we do feel fairly confident that we can 

get those programming costs to look like the DIRECTV programming costs. That is the mechanical piece that we believe can happen in a fairly short period of time. We are not making any assumptions that DIRECTV, their programming costs can go down. 
23 

It is just that we can make the AT&T costs look more like the 

DIRECTV costs. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. And you think that is true, Mr. White? 

Mr. WHITE. Yes, but I think you are raising a very good point. 

All of us—and I have been fighting content cost increases because 

I hear from my customers all the time about their frustration with 

the increase in their pay-TV bill. We fought, I think, the good fight 

at DIRECTV. We have had a number of blackouts with big companies as well as medium-sized media companies. There is no easy 

answer to rising content costs, frankly, but in this particular case, 

I think the savings that Randall is referring to are specifically in 

comparing their content costs to ours and trying to figure out how 

we get their rates through negotiation to our rates and where we 

already are. And that is what we are talking about in terms of content costs. Beyond that I would say it is pretty hard, as I said, to 

commit to lower prices on a pure play video product because of the 

power of the content companies. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Well, let me take the next leap of faith. 

Assuming just for purposes of this argument that you are successful in driving down the costs of content and achieving cost savings 

more generally, can you commit that those cost savings will be 

passed along dollar for dollar to consumers? Mr. Stephenson. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Dollar for dollar, no, sir, I cannot commit to 

that. What I can commit is it is a highly competitive industry, and 

margins get competed away in these industries. That is why what 

we are submitting as support the econometric models that the DOJ 

will use when they review this, and those models strongly indicate 

downward pricing pressure. 

Again, the prices will go down? I do not think we want to intimate that. But what we do believe is the trends can be changed— 

the programming costs going up 8 percent a year—and that will 

mitigate the price increases that we are having to pass along to 

consumers. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. So the best you can tell us is that price 

increases will be mitigated? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Slowed, yes. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. In other words, the rate of increase will 

be slowed. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. We hope that would be the byproduct of this. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. That is the best you can promise us will 

result from this merger? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Is that true, Mr. White? 

Mr. WHITE. I think you will see better value bundles. On the 

pure play pay-television business, it is very difficult because of the 

cost of content, which is far and away our biggest cost. But we 

have not had a competitive broadband video bundle, and I do think 

you will see better value for consumers than we currently—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. And what is your projection, Mr. Stephenson, as to how much mitigation, how much reduction in the rate 

of increase there will be? What percentage? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Well, as I mentioned, it is a bit episodic, meaning it is event specific, getting the AT&T costs to look like the 
24 

DIRECTV costs. And so we believe that we can drop our content 

costs by as much as 15 percent and maybe a little more. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. And what percentage of that will be 

passed along to consumers? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. It is hard to say. I mean, I cannot even tell 

what the prices of these services will be 6 months from now. This 

is a hyper-competitive market. It moves literally by the week. And 

so prices are changing in this market constantly. You are trying to 

meet the competition. You are doing promotional pricing on a regular basis. So it is hard to even say what it will be 2 months from 

now, much less 3 years from now. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Well, I feel like I am watching the 

movie—I do not even remember what it was, but it just occurred 

to me, you know, there is a line, ‘‘It is complicated.’’ And I have 

this sense that we are watching a rerun here of—you know, with 

all good intentions, you are telling us that you cannot really give 

us the specifics, but we are not going to see any drop in prices. At 

the best we will see some reduction in the rate of increase. And I 

think a lot of consumers would find that answer unsatisfying. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes, sir, I suppose one would have to believe 

in the market and the market pressures and that market pressures 

will compete margins away and cost savings will find their way 

into prices, because the cost savings in this deal are very specific, 

and they are fairly hard. And so if you believe the industry is competitive, the margins do get competed down. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Well, that is why I asked you—and my 

time has expired. I apologize. But that is why I asked you whether 

you could commit that those cost savings will be passed along, if 

not dollar for dollar at least maybe 50 percent, 75 percent. Can you 

give us that answer? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Not here right now. I mean, we can get back 

to you, but I cannot tell you exactly what those numbers will be. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

Senator Cornyn. 

Senator CORNYN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you all 

for being here today, and Mr. Stephenson, of course, heads up a 

Texas-based company, a small Texas-based mom-and-pop. 

I find these kinds of hearings a little surreal in some ways because, of course, we do not have jurisdiction over whether this 

merger occurs or not. That is the Department of Justice and the 

FCC. But I do think it is helpful to learn and think more deeply 

about these issues. But I also remember that there is a famous 

quote from Yogi Berra, who said, ‘‘It is tough to make predictions, 

especially about the future.’’ And, of course, we are having to make 

predictions about the future here, and I wonder about the institutional competence of Congress to do that. But I am certainly interested in what you have to say. 

I know there has been concern expressed in some testimony already about how this merger affects rural consumers, but as you 

know, Mr. Stephenson, we have large, expansive rural areas in 

Texas. Would you reiterate or perhaps tell us what advantages you 

think this merger would offer to those rural consumers? 
25 

Mr. STEPHENSON. You bet. One of the elegant pieces of this deal 

is Mike has a video distribution capability that is very efficient for 

rural delivery of television. Getting broadband to rural America, 

this Committee knows as well as anybody, it is really difficult to 

get an economic basis for putting broadband into rural America. 

The wireless technology that we have developed, when you combine 

it with a profitable video product, gives us an opportunity to get 

this wireless technology deployed. It is good technology. This is 

high performance technology, 15 to 20 megabits per second capability. And just as an example, for our State of Texas, Senator, we 

will pass almost 500,000 additional homes in the rural areas of 

Texas with this technology. In Minnesota, it is 484,000. In Connecticut it is 94,000. These are hard commitments. These are commitments we are willing to make and do intend to make. We will 

build this out and pair it with a TV product. We think this is an 

exciting opportunity for rural America. 

Senator CORNYN. I think it was Mr. Wood—and he can correct 

me if I am wrong—who said that there was no good reason for this 

merger, that you ought to spend the $70 billion building out your 

broadband network independently. What is your response to that? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I do not see the capital markets stepping up 

volunteering to fund that kind of broadband build across America. 

That is a mega capital commitment. If I were to come out and announce a commitment to build that kind of fiber deployment across 

America, you could have my successor testifying in front of this 

Committee. The capital markets are not there to finance it. We are 

always looking for more efficient ways to deploy the technology, 

wireless, again, referred to as ‘‘inferior.’’ It is actually superior. It 

has better cost dynamics and allows us to get greater coverage of 

broadband than fixed into rural America. 

Senator CORNYN. Well, since I invoked his name, in fairness, I 

will ask, Mr. Wood, would you care to respond to that answer? 

Mr. WOOD. Sure. I think first of all, for the rural benefits on the 

buildout, what is hard to follow is exactly what is new here, because AT&T committed in 2006 with the Bell South merger to provide broadband throughout its entire wireline territory, some of 

that being wireless. This is, I think, a commitment to expand that 

outside of the AT&T wireline footprint. But, again, they also said 

last month that they were providing a wireless home phone and 

Internet product throughout the entire country at this point. 

So the benefits for rural, regardless of how good the technology 

is or how much better or worse it is than other options, I think are 

hard to follow, once again, just because we have heard these kinds 

of promises before, and it is not entirely clear, to me at least, what 

is new and what is specific to this merger. 

When it comes to the fiber build in the capital markets, I think 

that points to one of the problems we have here. Mr. Stephenson 

describes that as a—was it a mega intensive capital project? But, 

of course, when they expend that same amount of money on a 

merger, their stock price goes up. And so what we have is Wall 

Street and investors, who are perfectly free to have that opinion, 

favoring mergers and actually dissuading companies from investing 

in new builds without taking out competition. Somehow AT&T can 

find the money and the purpose and the reason to invest in fiber 
26 

where Google Fiber goes first—now, Google Fiber is not everywhere, but it has shown up in a few places, and AT&T can invest 

there. We wonder why that is not the case other places, and perhaps that is because it is not all that competitive in other regions. 

If we had competition, we might get investment. 

Senator CORNYN. Well, Mr. Wood, what I understand Mr. Stephenson to say is he thinks this is probably an investment better 

calculated to return something on their investment for their shareholders, and you see nothing wrong with that, do you? 

Mr. WOOD. No, although I would note that when Google did their 

fiber build in Kansas City, the early reports were something like 

75 percent take-up rate. So even with an average take-up rate of 

something like 30 percent in the industry, we think that this 

amount of money could be used to go past 71 million homes and 

to sign up 20 million or more new customers. I would think that 

would be a profitable endeavor, but, of course, I do not have access 

to AT&T’s numbers for this deal yet. We will be looking at those 

numbers as well during the FCC process. 

Senator CORNYN. Well, I wonder if some of you may comment on 

this question. I noticed that in the written testimony one of you 

mentioned the high cost of ESPN to pay-TV providers. Another 

mentioned concerns about accessing regional sports networks. And 

this entire merger is, as I understand it, contingent on the ability 

of DIRECTV to renew its NFL Sunday Ticket contract. 

Why are these sporting events so valuable to pay-TV providers? 

And how is the demand for athletic content influencing the cost 

and structure of pay-TV? Mr. White, that sounds like a good question for you. 

Mr. WHITE. Sure, Senator. Clearly, in today’s world sports is the 

one live event that you get people to watch and, therefore, advertisers are interested in advertising against. And so increasingly, in 

a more fragmented world, we are seeing more and more it is sports 

that draws people together, and that is where you see, as you 

pointed out, a significant pressure on content costs is coming from 

sports. But it is still the one thing folks gather around in the bar, 

the television in the family room, or elsewhere to watch, is sports. 

Senator CORNYN. Well, I am old enough to remember some of the 

apocalyptic predictions that have been made over time about what 

the future holds. I remember reading a book called ‘‘The Population 

Bomb,’’ by B.F. Skinner, that said we were all going to starve because the population would outpace the capability to grow the crops 

and to produce the food to feed us. And that thankfully did not 

prove to be true. 

So I think that is the hard part about trying to evaluate these 

kinds of deals that we are being asked to predict the future, and 

you no doubt—I hope and trust you are in a much better position 

to predict on behalf of your shareholders and consumers what the 

future looks like in this very fast-moving and complex area. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much. 

Senator Franken. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank 

you to all the panel here today. This is the second time in 3 months 

that the Members of this Committee have met to discuss a deal 
27 

that could transform the telecommunications industry. Consumers 

are more dependent on this industry than ever before. We need 

more investment in telecommunications, investment in infrastructure, in customer service, and in new technologies. Instead, the industry proposes more consolidation. Comcast wants to buy Time 

Warner Cable, Sprint wants to buy T-Mobile, and AT&T says that 

because of this they need to get bigger, too. 

To me that is not a good reason to approve a deal. We need to 

examine this merger on its own terms. AT&T and DIRECTV have 

explained why this is a good deal for them. As good corporate citizens, they must also explain why this is a good deal for consumers. 

I just wanted to pick up on something that Senator Cornyn said, 

not predicting the future. I remember when fin-syn was rescinded 

in 1989, and there was testimony, Mr. Keyser, then from the networks that this would not reduce independent producing. But I remember people in the Writers Guild saying it would. Who was 

right? 

Mr. KEYSER. I am afraid that we were right, Senator. 

Senator FRANKEN. So you were able to predict something right, 

accurately, because it flowed from what fin-syn was—the networks 

owned—were not allowed to own their programs, and they wanted 

to be able to own them. And they said, ‘‘Hey, we are not going to 

favor our own programming. We want to get the highest ratings 

possible. Why would we favor our own program?’’ 

What was the percentage of independent programmers then and 

what is the percentage now? 

Mr. KEYSER. Senator, I think it was somewhere between 70 and 

80 percent before fin-syn and we are down to about 10 percent now, 

but much of that is reality programming. It is not scripted programming. 

Senator FRANKEN. Right, so the prediction actually was true, so 

we can see the future a little bit. 

I would like to talk about how this merger would affect consumer 

prices. Mr. Stephenson and Mr. White say they need this deal to 

sell a better bundle. That is a package of TV and Internet and 

phone services all rolled into one. But bundles are only good for 

consumers if they actually offer cost savings, not if they are structured to hide the true costs of each service or force people to buy 

products that they do not want. This merger would increase 

AT&T’s bundling power, but I am not sure that is what consumers 

want. Many of my constituents complain to me about bundles. 

They feel that they are getting a raw deal. 

Mr. Wood, you are a consumer advocate. Should consumers be 

concerned about AT&T having more bundling power? 

Mr. WOOD. Yes, I think so, Senator Franken. We have heard this 

afternoon that margins get competed away in these business because they are so competitive. I think what we see instead is sometimes margins are taken away programming costs rise more quickly than consumers are willing to pay those increases. But the margins get shifted, and so even if a company’s video margins are declining, even the biggest, even Comcast, these declining video margins—still high profitable, mind you, but declining over where they 

once were, their overall company margins are better because they 

are able to shift that revenue and shift those profits into broadband 
28 

in ways that I think are attractive to the companies but necessarily 

good for their customers. 

Senator FRANKEN. Mr. Stephenson, you have promised to offer 

your customers a stand-alone Internet plan if this deal is approved. 

Stand-alone plans are very important for consumers, especially socalled cord cutters who do not want to pay for expensive bundles. 

They just want the Internet. Many of my constituents want this option, and my view is that you should be offering it whether the deal 

is approved or not. 

However, this is not the first time that AT&T has made this 

promise. Back in 2006, when your company was acquiring Bell 

South, you promised to offer your customers a stand-alone Internet 

plan. But after that deal went through, you did not advertise it. Instead, you hid the plan deep down in the terms and conditions page 

of your website. Most of your customers did not know that it existed. This sounds to me like a broken promise, an example of consumers being forced into expensive bundles that they do not necessarily want. 

Mr. Stephenson, would you commit here today to selling a standalone Internet plan that is clear and visible to consumers? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes, sir, I will. I will commit it directly to you. 

We have 11 million high-speed broadband customers today. Of 

those, only half have our TV product. We very much aspire to have 

a stand-alone broadband product. We are a broadband company. 

That is our primary product that we sell in the consumer home solutions space today. So, absolutely, I will make you without equivocation that commitment. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you. 

Let us talk about rural broadband. I have worked to get rural 

broadband expanded. You know, I do not know why this deal, 

which costs $67 billion, could not be invested in rural broadband, 

Mr. Wood. And I have to say that many towns in Minnesota—you 

mentioned Minnesota, Mr. Stephenson—are fed up with being disconnected from the digital economy, and they have taken matters 

into their own hands. They want to build their own locally operated 

broadband networks. There is a lot of evidence that these municipal networks provide excellent and affordable service and they are 

good for the economy. Mayors, city councils, and county boards 

across America want to invest in municipal broadband, but in 

many States their hands are tied. In some places, municipal 

broadband has been outlawed on the grounds that it might compete 

with private companies. This is blatantly anti-consumer, and I 

think it violates local government rights. 

Mr. Stephenson, AT&T reportedly spends a lot of money lobbying 

for these anticompetitive laws, and that has worried me about 

what you will do if you become a bigger player in rural areas. Municipal broadband is a way for small towns to take control of their 

economic destiny. If they want to build it, the law should let them 

build it. 

Mr. Stephenson, if cities want to build their own networks, why 

should the law stop them? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Areas that are unserved with broadband, I actually have no issue with what you said. Those where there are private capital alternatives and private capital is stepping in to build 
29 

it, quite frankly, the idea of private capital competing with taxpayer-provided capital just feels inconsistent to us with what a free 

market system looks like. But where it is unserved, it seems like 

a logical place for Government to step in and provide a solution. 

Senator FRANKEN. But, in other words, you do not deny spending 

capital, spending money on this legislation to prevent municipal 

broadband? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I do not know if we have spent money or not. 

I have personally advocated that where we are investing or others 

are investing private capital, that we should not be required to 

compete against Government taxpayer money. But where it is 

unserved, then—— 

Senator FRANKEN. Well, I know I have run out of time, and so 

your answer is that you are not aware that AT&T has spent money 

lobbying and has given money to groups that lobby to prevent municipalities from setting up their own broadband? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I do not know where we have given lobbying— 

I am not saying we have not. I just do not know. 

Senator FRANKEN. You do not know. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I do not know. 

Senator FRANKEN. Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Thank you, Senator Franken. 

Just coming off the rural issue, a different piece of it, Mr. White, 

DIRECTV’s early focus—you and I have talked about this—was 

rural America where satellite is often the only way to go to get 

video service. You currently have more than 7.5 million subscribers, 36 percent of your customers in rural areas. Serving rural 

America is important to me, as you know, and to Senator Franken 

and many on this Committee. 

Are you still committed to rural America? Will you commit to 

carrying rural-focused programming after the merger with AT&T? 

And I specifically note that AT&T is the only national carrier that 

is not carrying RFD-TV, which is an independent channel focused 

on rural America. And I am wondering what is going to happen 

with that, but I will start with you, Mr. White. 

Mr. WHITE. Sure. I think I will have an opportunity to convince 

Randall that RFD-TV would be great for them to carry. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. That sound very good. 

Mr. WHITE. As we do at DIRECTV. But rural America is very important to us. The satellite has unique advantages in rural areas 

where we are not competing with fiber to the home. And I think 

it continues to be important to us. Frankly, having 20 million subscribers is very important for our competitiveness when we negotiate content deals. And so we want to have as many customers 

that we can serve well as possible. We pay a lot of attention to 

what our rural subscribers are interested in in the way of content. 

We have over 150 independent networks that we carry on 

DIRECTV. We think the diversity of that content is important to 

our customers, and we intend to continue to actively support those 

rural areas. 

And I would say with regard to the discussion about pricing, it 

is always hard for any business person to answer, but you could 

not afford the capital to build out 15 million homes broadband if 
30 

it were not for this deal. And that is a significant investment. So 

without a profitable video business coupled with AT&T’s capability 

to build that broadband, we would not have it. 

So that is where the real investment is. It makes that investment a smart investment for our shareholders. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. Mr. Keyser, given recent media 

consolidation, not just this deal, the number of independent channels, as you well know, we just talked about it, has been shrinking. 

And we have heard from many of the remaining independent programmers that they are confronted with challenges of getting their 

content to consumers. They claim that they lack any real leverage 

in negotiations compared to channels owned by major conglomerates with multiple cable networks and/or broadcast networks. As 

a result, they often are forced to accept smaller fees compared to 

channels that do not rate as well, poor channel replacement, and 

more restrictive distribution conditions that the non-independently 

owned channels get. 

You have member writers who partner with independent programmers. Do you want to talk about this concern and what you 

have seen? 

Mr. KEYSER. Thank you, Senator. Yes, we are very concerned 

about that. I have had conversations with a number of independent 

programmers who talk about the disadvantage they are at in dealing already with DIRECTV even before it acquires this additional 

competitive advantage, for example, policies such as demanding 

most-favored-nation deals with those independent programmers, 

which means that DIRECTV will pay only the worst deal that 

those programmers get from any other distributor. 

In addition, they often put onerous restrictions on the distribution of their content through the Internet, and those are restrictions that are not placed on larger providers. All of those pressures 

eventually will lead to less programming opportunities for us, for 

writers, and for viewers who see that content, and eventually probably will, in addition to that, lead to mergers of content providers, 

which is the second thing that we are worried about, in order to 

effectively compete against distributors who have an enormous leverage in that one-on-one negotiation over the cost of content and 

the availability of that content, they will eventually need to—they 

will need to merge. 

At some point, Senator, if you have a chance, I would love to 

speak about the question of content cost. I do not want to interrupt 

now. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. I was getting at that. You can answer. 

You have been kind of quiet here, you know, while making candelabra jokes. 

Mr. KEYSER. You know, I am an independent producer—— 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. I think you can have an opportunity to 

talk about—— 

Mr. KEYSER [continuing]. Of answers in this panel. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR [continuing]. Content costs. I was asking 

about that in part in my question. 

Mr. KEYSER. There is a lot of conversation about content cost. We 

have heard that it is 60 percent of the cost of doing business, that 

costs are rising. Those are descriptive and not normative conversa-
31 

tions about what content costs are. Quite apart from the question 

of whether a virtual monopoly is likely to pass on its own efficiencies to its consumers, we ought to point out that there is another transaction that is going on here, which is the transaction between those who purchase the product that content providers make 

and those who distribute it, essentially provide the shelves. 

They have every right to lower their costs as much as they can 

through a fair market transaction. What they do not have the right 

to do is to put the kind of pressure on that transaction that occurs 

when they essentially own all of the shelves. What that means is 

that if I need to sell my product, if I am the person who makes a 

television program that a writer writes and the audience wants to 

see and I have only one place to put it, I have no ability to actually 

exact from the transaction the fair cost of what I produce. And if 

that is permitted to happen, what is going to end up happening is 

the amount of product will be reduced, and that is bad for me as 

a writer and all of my writers, but really in the long run, the people who it is most—who it puts most at a disadvantage is the consumer. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. You know, as we talk about this consolidation and some of the issues you raised, you do start to think, and 

we know we have had a lot of innovation in the last few years, and 

from some major companies, but at what point is it enough? You 

know, with the rumors of Sprint-T-Mobile, with what we had with 

Comcast, what is that tipping point when it is appropriate for antitrust laws to step in? I do not know if anyone wants to take—Mr. 

Downes, you believe in fair—in competition, but is there some point 

where everyone is merging, where you have too much of this and 

too much consolidation? 

Mr. DOWNES. Well, of course, it is possible. I do not see this as 

a particular risk now because, as I say, we keep getting these increasing declines in the component costs of the basic technology, 

and that is what is driving the real innovation. That is what is 

really driving competition. I think these mergers, this one in particular, is, as I said, a defensive one. It is in response to rising 

pressure—good pressure but rising pressure from over-the-top services, which is where the real innovation is happening. It is unregulated, and that is where we are seeing, you know, people figuring 

out new ways of delivering content, new ways of producing content, 

new ways of attracting audience, new ways of monetizing—— 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Right, but how about the fact that the 

prices keep going up for consumers? 

Mr. DOWNES. Well, the prices of the programming bills are going 

up because the large content providers are forcing larger and larger 

bundles of channels onto the distributors. As I say, the FCC says 

the actual average cost per channel keeps going down, but if the 

bundle gets bigger, then you do not see that in terms of any reduction. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Mr. Wood and then Mr. Lieberman. 

Mr. WOOD. Interesting on that last point that we see bundles actually leading to increased prices when they are forced on people, 

but turning to your device cost point, Mr. Downes, and your question, Senator, that is what happens when we have a truly competitive market, is we actually see prices dropping, not going up. So 
32 

I think that is a fair comparison, but we do not just expect to see 

prices only rising slightly or rising less quickly than they would 

have otherwise. If there is a truly competitive market and people 

are empowered to make choices and actually have choices available 

to them, we should see prices going down for technology, not simply 

treading water or continuing to spiral out of control year after year. 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. For pay-TV providers, content costs are a problem. They are rising very quickly. 

The second problem deals with the discriminatory pricing practices. Smaller operators pay 30 percent more for programming than 

larger operators, and these operators that are buying this program 

are often serving in rural areas. So when we hear about this deal 

providing benefits to rural America because AT&T is going to be 

able to lower their programming costs to provide service in these 

areas, I am left here thinking to myself that if there are concerns 

with the deal and there are concerns about not having broadband 

in rural America and service in rural America, that there are 

smaller operators that are already there having difficulties—and 

telephone companies as well having difficulties with programming 

prices. If you can address that issue, either through an examination, a report on what is going on, to better understand what that 

problem is, you could then empower those operators that are already in these markets to be more competitive in the market and 

then to use the savings that they have to further deploy broadband 

in their areas. It is a different approach to solving the problem 

than just allowing mergers to happen. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. One last question before I turn it 

over to Senator Lee I guess I will ask you, Mr. Wood, or anyone 

else. We have heard concerns a little bit about what Mr. Keyser 

was talking about, about MVPDs, including DIRECTV, that demand very restrictive most-favored-nation or, as it is known, MFN 

provisions that ensure that the MVPD gets the best contract provisions independents provide to any other MVPD, regardless of 

whether provision is negotiated as part of a broader package. These 

most-favored-nation clauses can benefit consumers in terms of ensuring better pricing, but are there instances where MFNs can be 

anticompetitive and harm consumers? And are they typically regarding pricing, or are they increasingly about restricting content 

from being distributed by online video providers? 

Mr. WOOD. I am happy to answer, Senator, but I am sure others 

have views on this as well. I think that MFNs could cause harm 

to customers, and that harm really stems from not knowing what 

people are paying for each individual programming choice. This is 

often referred to as ‘‘a la carte’’ in cable parlance. And so whatever 

the MFN does to the price, ultimately, or to increase the value of 

the service or to offer people more or less choice, if consumers had 

more of a view into what they are paying, not only for each programming stream and each programming channel, but also for 

their broadband as compared to their video programming, I think 

that kind of transparency in pricing would help to, if not get rid 

of MFNs, then alleviate some of the problems from them where 

people would have a choice and some insight into what they are actually buying and how much it costs. 
33 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. Mr. Keyser, do you want to add 

anything? Then we will end with Mr. White, and then turn it over 

to Mr. Lee. 

Mr. KEYSER. To me, the real question here, apart from what Mr. 

Wood says, is that it is a two-part transaction, and the important 

thing is that we have no guarantee that the consumers get the benefit of increased efficiency on the part of the combined companies. 

What we do know is that the negotiation posture that they are able 

to take with those who provide them the content, either independent producers or independent channels, becomes unequal. In 

the long run that is fundamentally unfair, and particularly unfair 

when there is no indication that consumers are going to benefit 

from it. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITE. So, Senator, having been involved in these negotiations for the last 5 years, including MFN or most-favored-nation 

discussions, I can tell you exactly how it is used. I think it of it 

as a seat belt. There is no transparency whatsoever into what the 

content companies are charging my competitors. Therefore, I am 

left there to fight on behalf of my customers to say, Are we getting 

a fair deal? I am going to fight hard for my customers to make sure 

that they are getting a fair deal and that there are not other games 

being played. And so the MFN is strictly a way to protect ourselves 

as a defensive thing to make sure that when they come in and tell 

me they want a 30-percent increase or a 50-percent increase—by 

the way, our retransmission fees have been growing 55 percent 

over the last 3 years—that I can at least have some discipline, 

some check and balance to make sure that our customers are not 

paying more than anybody else, particularly our rural customers. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. Last, Mr. Lieberman. 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Thank you. I would say it from the other side 

as the smaller operators who often do not get MFN deals, provisions in their contracts. When they negotiate with programmers 

and they sometimes try to ask for different types of deals, creative 

deals, deals that might address their particular circumstances, programmers often tell them, ‘‘I cannot do that,’’ and the implication 

is it is because it will implicate MFN provisions that are in larger 

providers’ deals. 

So sometimes the ways they may be used as Mr. White has described; in other cases, it is used to actually limit the way that 

competitors or smaller providers are able to negotiate their deals. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. Senator Lee. 

Senator LEE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. White, I want to start by getting your response to Mr. 

Keyser’s point about the effect of the merger on your ability to obtain content at below-market rates. Tell me what your best response to that is. 

Mr. WHITE. That is not really part of our assumptions, nor have 

we said that I am going to get anything—I do not think I get anything below market rates, although I try, with the content providers. So I think what we have been saying is that in the U-verse 

geographies, the 5 million U-verse subscribers are paying quite a 

bit more for the content than DIRECTV customers do, and that we 

would get those savings. 
34 

As it relates to the rest of our business, you know, we actually 

think there are opportunities for the programmers with the wireless opportunities that AT&T has to find new ways to monetize 

their content on other platforms. 

Senator LEE. Okay. And so your assessment is that the net impact of that would not leave the content providers without a place 

to sell their product. 

Mr. WHITE. No, absolutely not. And we expect to have even more 

channels carried over the top. So, for instance, today we have Pandora and YouTube, but it requires Internet. And for us to expand 

that to other opportunities of channels that want to go over the top 

as an app, we need more Internet. 

Senator LEE. Okay. Mr. Lieberman, you raised some concerns 

about DIRECTV’s vertical integration and specifically about the 

prices that it could charge to its rivals for content that it owns, 

that DIRECTV owns. 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Senator LEE. You also expressed some doubt as to whether arbitration could take care of that, some of kind of arbitration requirements could take care of that. Which content in particular do you 

think DIRECTV could either withhold from its rival—that it could 

withhold from its rivals? And why don’t you think arbitration 

agreements might work in that context? 

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Sure. Thanks for the question. So, generally, regional sports networks are the most in demand the highest-priced 

programming, and vertically integrated operators that own that 

programming have the highest incentive to charge their rivals high 

prices for that. So, in particular, like Root Sports Rocky Mountain, 

which covers Colorado as well as Utah, I have nine members in 

Utah that carry this programming. They also compete with 

DIRECTV, and they have to negotiate with them for this programming. DIRECTV has an incentive to charge them higher prices 

than they would charge to anybody that they would not compete 

against. 

This issue has been raised in other merger considerations at the 

FCC, and the FCC has found this to be true with economic theory 

as well as evidence. And what they have adopted is they have said 

that existing program access rules are not enough, that we need 

to—and their solution to it was baseball-style arbitration, where, if 

there is a negotiation impasse, both sides put in their best offer, 

and an arbitration decides what is closest to fair market value. 

It is an elegant solution that works well for larger operators. The 

cost is estimated to be $500,000 to $1 million. So if you have that 

kind of money and the program is—and the cost differential is 

going to be that great, you go for it. But the operators that—these 

nine operators I mentioned, like an operator in Spanish Fork City 

has 5,000 subscribers, you are not going to spend between $500,000 

and $1 million to pursue this remedy in order to save yourself, you 

know, a smaller amount. 

So there needs to be a remedy that is adopted to address this 

problem, and there needs to be some new thinking on it in order 

that all providers can benefit from it. 

Senator LEE. Mr. Downes, as you note in your testimony, the importance of broadband appears to be on the increase, you know, as 
35 

consumers are increasingly relying on that medium, and not just 

for data but also for voice and even for video. Do you see this trend 

continuing into the future? And how do you see this particular 

transaction impacting that trend in the market for high-speed 

Internet? 

Mr. DOWNES. Thank you, Senator. So essentially we now have, 

you know, almost complete convergence of a lot of different technologies for distributing voice, data, video, have now all pretty 

much converged on the Internet as the one set of protocols that 

they are going to use and it does not really matter anymore so 

much what tech—some technologies are better for some things 

than others. But, yes, broadband Internet is going to be the core 

of how not just content but how all interactions happen, including, 

you know, the Internet of things and home security and all the future services that are going to be built on top of that network. 

I think as far as this transaction is concerned, the one thing that 

is very important to note is, with all due respect to Mr. White, satellite is not a particularly good technology so far; at least the physics of it do not seem to really work very well as a way of communicating broadband speeds. And so if DIRECTV is going to remain 

a viable competitor in this market, it really needs not just better 

integrated broadband, but really natively broadband technology, 

because, you know, it is not just that I want to watch TV now and 

then I want to do some Internet later. It is I am going to start 

watching a program on one device, and I want it to pick up on the 

other device exactly where I left it off. And that is not just about 

the kind of business integration that the parties are talking about. 

That is really a technical integration that is going to be essential 

to deliver, I think, what are going to be next generation broadband 

services. 

Senator LEE. Mr. White, my sense of due process is such that I 

feel the need to give you the chance to respond to Mr. Lieberman’s 

statement a few minutes ago. 

Mr. WHITE. Yes, so two quick points. One, I think that is exactly 

why we are excited about this opportunity, is we get broadband 

and we get it in many more places because we will have a profitable video business married to a broadband business, and it underpins the investments that AT&T is promising. 

The second thing I just wanted to say on the regional sports networks, I would be the first to tell you that the regional sports network business is a difficult business. We have had our own challenges at DIRECTV in Los Angeles. But I would also point out that 

the three RSNs that we have, in Pittsburgh, in Colorado, and in 

Seattle, AT&T does not overlap in any of those geographies and is 

not a factor. So it has nothing to do with the merger. 

Senator LEE. So this merger would not impact any of those three 

RSNs? 

Mr. WHITE. Not at all, no. 

Senator LEE. Okay. All right. Thank you. I see my time has expired. Thank you. 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. Okay. Well, I think we are done here, 

and this has been a very good hearing with a lot of good questions. 

I think that while we see that there are—the services are complementary in many ways and there are some benefits that have 
36 

been laid out, we also see that there is some estimates that 41 percent of the market share the two companies have in Los Angeles, 

42 percent in Dallas, 43 percent in Atlanta, and so we have some 

issues there. And then also I think that the witnesses have done 

a good job of laying out some of the content concerns and the leverage issues, which I am sure we will be exploring more with questions and information to the Justice Department and the other 

agencies. 

But I do want to thank the witnesses once again. You have done 

a very good job. I do want to ask unanimous consent that we include the following items in the record: a letter from the Communications Workers of America supporting the merger; a letter 

signed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 

People, the NAACP; and the National Association of Black-Owned 

Broadcasters that also notes some issues that I think are very important. 

Then we also have—okay, we have multiple copies of the letter 

in case everyone wants one. 

[The letters appear as submissions for the record.] 

Chairman KLOBUCHAR. We will keep the record of the hearing 

open for 1 week, and I want to thank our great staff that have been 

working on this hearing: Caroline Holland, right behind me, whom 

many people know; and Kate Geldaker; as well as all of the staff 

for Senator Lee and Senator Leahy and everyone who has been involved in this hearing. These are complicated matters. They are 

very important to consumers, and we look forward to working on 

this in the months to come. 

Thank you very much to all of you. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:26 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Additional material submitted for the record follows.] 
(37) 

A P P E N D I X 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANDALL STEPHENSON
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WHITE
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER KEYSER
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF MATTHEW F. WOOD
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF LARRY DOWNES
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROSS J. LIEBERMAN
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PATRICK J. LEAHY
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO RANDALL STEPHENSON BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO MICHAEL WHITE BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO MATTHEW F. WOOD BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO LARRY DOWNES BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO ROSS J. LIEBERMAN BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO RANDALL STEPHENSON BY SENATOR FRANKEN
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RESPONSES OF LARRY DOWNES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED

BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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RESPONSES OF ROSS J. LIEBERMAN TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED

BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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RESPONSES OF RANDALL STEPHENSON TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED

BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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RESPONSES OF RANDALL STEPHENSON TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED

BY SENATOR FRANKEN
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RESPONSES OF MICHAEL WHITE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED

BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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RESPONSES OF MATTHEW F. WOOD TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED

BY SENATOR KLOBUCHAR
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SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
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SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
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SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
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