Now that AT&T's plan for an $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner is official, the big question is whether it will make it through the review process by US regulators.
Even before the deal was announced on Saturday, the two companies faced harsh skepticism that such a plan would be approved. Since Saturday night, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes have been making the case for why they are confident the deal will go through.
In short, they don't think this is the same case as the bungled AOL/Time Warner merger or when AT&T was blocked from acquiring T-Mobile.
It's different this time.
Here are the highlights of their arguments:
Vertical integration
On a conference call with reporters on Saturday night, Stephenson described the acquisition as a vertical integration, meaning AT&T and Time Warner do not currently compete and therefore would not remove competition from the market by joining.
He argued that this was much different from AT&T's attempted takeover of T-Mobile in 2011. That deal was shot down by regulators. It's more similar to Comcast's takeover of NBC Universal.
Recent concerns with similar mergers
Despite the arguments by Stephenson and Bewkes that this deal won't eliminate competition from the market, there have been signs that regulators aren't a fan of vertical deals like this.
But Stephenson said he thought any concerns could be put to rest by offering concessions the way Comcast did with NBC.
"While regulators will often times have concerns with vertical integrations, those are always remedied by conditions imposed on the merger," Stephenson said on an interview with CNBC Monday morning. "And so that's how we envision this one to play out."
We won't learn what those concessions are until AT&T starts moving forward with the regulatory review.
Good for consumers
As viewing habits shift from traditional linear TV to mobile and over-the-top internet services, AT&T thinks this will be a win for customers. The company says it will make it easier to get the content they like from HBO, CNN, TNT, and others on more devices.
For example, AT&T, through its acquisition of DirecTV last year, will launch a new streaming service in November called DirecTV Now, which will let you watch pay TV over the internet on any device. Owning a lot of that content through Time Warner makes services like that even easier to build.
The argument against the merger
Rich Greenfield, an analyst at research firm BTIG, has been one of the most vocal pundits against the AT&T/Time Warner deal. He said AT&T could raise the price of Time Warner content, which is harmful to consumers who don't have AT&T. It gives AT&T an unfair advantage and costs most consumers in the long run.
"Let’s be honest, prices aren’t going to go down because of this," Greenfield told the New York Times on Sunday.
It sounds like investors aren't very confident this deal will go through. Time Warner's stock was at about $87 Monday morning, far below the $107.50 per share AT&T is offering to buy the company. Typically, the stock of a target company pushes closer to the sale price if investors think a merger like this will be approved.
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