The Sound and Fury: Did the AOL-Time Warner Hearings Signify Anything?

WASHINGTON -- Somebody might make it difficult for America Online(AOL Quote) to complete its acquisition of Time Warner(TWX Quote). But it's unlikely that somebody will be the Federal Communications Commission.

A hearing held Thursday on issues concerning the proposed acquisition was generally thought-provoking, often contentious and occasionally hilarious. But little in the five hours of testimony -- including that of AOL Chairman Steve Case and Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin -- appeared to convince a majority of the five commissioners that they should take action to block or modify the deal which would create media behemoth AOL Time Warner.

Some of the concerns debated before the commission were longstanding media-merger issues. Would AOL Time Warner use its market power to strong-arm other media programmers, starting with merger critic Disney(DIS Quote), which wants access to AOL Time Warner's cable customers? Would it give owners of competing cable and satellite systems access to in-house programming like CNN?

But the commission also had to deal with newer, thornier matters, such as the question of fairness in interactive TV, instant messaging and the issue known variously as "open access," "forced access" or, using a less-loaded term, "cable access" -- giving Internet service providers (ISPs) not affiliated with AOL Time Warner the opportunity to offer high-speed Internet access through its cable systems. These new lines of business concern markets that hardly exist, leaving the FCC with the question of how to ensure competition as they develop, if it indeed need bother doing anything at all. ...