Matt Pressberg

The $85 billion merger of AT&T and Time Warner suddenly seems to be in jeopardy. So how will this play out? Here are five possible scenarios.

1. Time Warner Unbundles
2. The Justice Department Blinks
3. Mega-Deal Gets Its Day in Court
4. AT&T Just Moves On
5. Time Warner Becomes the Belle of the Bidding Ball – Again
    

Here are five things to know about new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.
1. He was an Obama appointee
2. He’s a longtime opponent of net neutrality
3. He isn’t afraid to explicitly criticize his predecessor, Tom Wheeler
4. He’s a former Verizon lawyer
5. He’s from Kansas

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and CFO John Stephens shed light on the company’s fourth-quarter finances and future outlook as the world’s largest telecom company continues its evolution into a media empire. One thing they aren’t overly concerned with: the future of “zero rating,” which has helped its new streaming service DirecTV Now accumulate more than 200,000 subscribers in less than two months of operation.

AT&T uses zero rating to not charge its wireless customers for data they use while streaming DirecTV Now, the over-the-top service the company launched in November that opened with a promotional offer of more than 100 channels for $35 a month. The Federal Communications Commission sent a letter to AT&T in December expressing competitive concern about zero rating, but with a new regime led by network neutrality opponent Ajit Pai — installed by President Donald Trump — Stephenson isn’t worried about its longer-term prospects. “We actually were quite confident that zero rating as we were implementing was fine under a Pai chairmanship,” Stephenson said, remarking that AT&T was “going hard” when it was putting together that capability. “You should expect us to continue that, and continue to push aggressively on this.”