Jeff Bewkes: Pay TV Consolidation Could Lead To Problems In Long Term

The government may have to insist on conditions before approving deals such as Comcast’s planned acquisition of Time Warner Cable and AT&T’s with DirecTV the Time Warner CEO told investors.

He’s not concerned about the next few years. “In some ways it could help because they’ll be more effective distributors.”

But Jeff Bewkes wants assurance that the mergers won’t close doors for consumers who want his company’s content. ”It’s a question of what happens to innovation and technical advances,” he says. “Is it used to stifle competing products” such as set top boxes or user interfaces? It’s important that electronic distributors “offer a robust market that is not cut off to multiple sources for consumers to get at the programming.”