Re: Continental/MediaOne/AT&T/?

[Brian Vita <brian_vita@cssinc.com>]

At 11:58 AM 12/23/00 -0800, Mark Shneyder wrote:

>In addition, FCC ruled(4-1) against AT&T yesterday for
>failing to comply with basic merger conditions  when they
>absorbed MediaOne this year. They either have to sell
>large interest in cable programming or divest a large
>chunk of their operations(about 10mill subs), which will
>also include some Mass. systems. Cable programming is where
>the money is in the cable industry and it's way
>more profitable than operating cable systems. My bet is
>that they(AT&T) will sell and sell big this time to stop their
>stock from bleeding so much. I just hope it's Comcast and not
>Cox which will tell us what to watch and why.

I'm very annoyed that communities haven't been using this merger mania to 
force the licensees to live up to the promises that they have made in 
previous years before they allow the licenses to transfer.  For example, 
Time Warner had been promising us internet for years here in Salem.  We 
kept getting lip service but no internet.  They became Media One.  Same 
lies.  Now ATT but no internet.  I would love to see the transfers blocked 
until such time as they honor the contract.


Brian T. Vita, President
Cinema Service & Supply, Inc.
75 Walnut St.
Peabody, MA  01960-5626 USA
Sales:  (800)231-8849/Sales Fax:  (800)329-2775
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