Largest Merger in Media History Seen as Historic, Revolutionary, Whatever
DULLES, VA. (SatireWire.com) – Continually bombarded by news that the AOL-Time Warner merger would create the world’s first fully integrated media and communications company – a potentially anti-competitive Goliath that could dominate broadband interactive services for decades – the majority of Americans have no idea what I just wrote, and they don’t care.
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“Intellectually, I know this merger is important. I hear about it all the time on the news, and all these business magazines and Web sites are always playing it up like the Second Coming, but really, who gives a shit?” said Tina Desmond, a 34-year-old patent clerk from Cleveland, Ohio.
According to AOL chief executive Steve Case, everyone should give should care. “What we’re talking about here is a revolution,” Case insisted. “Our combined company will be the premier global company delivering branded information, entertainment and communications across rapidly converging media platforms and changing technology ”
“You know what I just heard?” countered 19-year-old University of Miami sophomore Bob Strock. “Blah blah fuckin’ blah.”
Asked if it mattered that the merger has just been approved by the Federal Trade Commission, which expressed concerns about competitive access to Time Warner’s cable transport facilities, Strock replied: “Go away.”
The realization that no one really cares about the merger irks competitors such as Qwest Communications, which is fighting the deal. Even analysts who cover the companies and like the merger have fared no better generating interest.
“Every day I tell my wife, ‘Honey, this new company will provide an important new broadband distribution platform for America Online’s interactive services and drive subscriber growth through cross-marketing with Time Warner’s pre-eminent brands,'” said IDG analyst Keith Sturgess. “And every day, she says ‘Keith, shut up.”
Case added that a combined AOL-Time Warner will spur a new era of innovation and robust competition and something something market leverage something, but we lost interest.
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