AT&T just bought itself the third-largest media company in the world, apparently, with The Washington Post reporting that a judge has struck down a government antitrust lawsuit and approved the telecom company’s long-planned merger with Time Warner. Hoping to fight back against its rival, Comcast—which bought NBCUniversal back in 2011—AT&T reportedly paid something on the order of $85 billion for the media giant.
The proposed merger has been waiting on approval for a while now, complete with suggestions that Donald Trump—whose attacks against TW subsidiary CNN have come with the frequency and volume of a child banging angrily on an ill-advised toy drum—was intentionally attempting to slow the process down. (A Time Warner spokesperson suggested that the case against the merger was politically motivated earlier today, in fact.)
Either way, we now live in a world where the same company that owns your smartphone plan also owns the Harry Potter movies, Superman, and Game Of Thrones, among hundreds of other properties. If we’re being honest, it doesn’t feel great to see one of the most monolithic entertainment companies on the planet become part of an even bigger Borg cube of corporate synergies, especially since today’s decision could potentially open up a lot of other big merger deals in the process. Still, hey: Can’t wait to see those wacky Riverdale kids create some AT&T-exclusive content where they talk about how much they love all the AT&T-exclusive content on their AT&T mobile devices, exclusively, right?!