Keach Hagey

The boards of CBS and Viacom have formed special committees to evaluate a potential merger, a deal that would reunite the two big pieces of the Redstone family’s media empire. Shari Redstone, vice chairman of both companies, is pushing for a merger. She, along with her 94 year-old father, Sumner Redstone, controls CBS and Viacom, with a roughly 80% controlling stake in each company through their holding company National Amusements. Shari Redstone believes both companies need greater scale to better compete against bigger rivals.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, met with a senior Time Warner executive in recent weeks and expressed the administration’s deep concerns about CNN’s news coverage, apparently. In a meeting at the White House, Kushner complained to Gary Ginsberg, executive vice president of corporate marketing and communications at CNN’s parent Time Warner, about what Kushner feels is unfair coverage slanted against the president.

The Trump administration’s hostile posture toward the news media, especially CNN, has been evident in the president’s own statements and those of his press secretary and top aides. While the administration is battling a large swath of the media, the fight with CNN has special intrigue because its parent company has a massive piece of business awaiting government approval: a proposed $85.4 billion sale to AT&T. Kushner and Ginsberg, who have been friends for a decade and whose discussion covered a variety of issues including Israel and the economy, didn’t discuss the merger in their recent meeting, apparently.

AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson made an $85 billion wager in Oct that would turn the giant telephone company into one of the world’s biggest media companies by swallowing Time Warner. The same day, Donald Trump told supporters in Gettysburg (PA) he would block the deal if elected president. “It’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few,” he said, calling the merger “an example of the power structure I am fighting.”

Few companies had more at stake in the presidential election than AT&T, which expected Hillary Clinton to be in the White House, said one former AT&T executive in Washington. Other businesses in a similar position are watching to see if the merger survives a still-undefined Trump administration. For the telecommunication industry, President-elect Trump could usher in an era of deregulation, a change from what many companies viewed as a strong-arm era under President Barack Obama. Yet President-elect Trump’s talk on the campaign trail about crushing the AT&T deal has left executives, lobbyists, bankers and others wondering what his view will be from the White House.

Two months ago, AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson stopped by Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes’s offices in New York for a lunch of salmon, while musing about the increasing convergence of the media and telecommunications industries. During their lunch, Stephenson surprised Bewkes by suggesting that AT&T buy Time Warner, apparently. Bewkes said it wasn’t for sale, but at the right price he would consider an offer, apparently, signaling that a deal was possible.

Stephenson walked away with his mind swirling with the possibilities that Time Warner’s premium content—top brands such as HBO, CNN and Warner Bros.—could bring to the streaming video service he was trying to build. “If you were ever going to do something like this, this is the content you’d like to use as an anchor tenant,” he said. From that point forward, things proceeded at breakneck speed, culminating in the biggest deal of the year as AT&T announced it was buying Time Warner for $107.50 a share—a 36% premium to where its stock was trading before the news of a deal started to trickle out during the week of Oct 17.

Dish Network is in discussions with NBC over Dish's ad-skipping digital video recorder, say people familiar with the situation, the latest sign that a two-year-old standoff between Dish and major broadcasters is easing.

While the talks are under way, NBC has put its lawsuit against Dish on hold, the people say. NBC is one of three major networks still in litigation with Dish over several features on its "Hopper" digital video recorder, including one that makes it easier to automatically skip commercials.

In early March Dish settled a lawsuit over the same issue with Walt Disney's ABC as part of a broader deal in which Dish renewed its right to carry Disney-owned TV networks on its satellite TV service.

It's unclear whether NBC and Dish are anywhere near close to resolving their differences, but the mere fact that the talks are under way at all highlights how the ground may be shifting in the long-running battle between the broadcasters and Dish. The Supreme Court ruling on Aereo may become a factor, as some lawyers say the ruling could complicate Dish's legal case.

The owners of Univision Communications, in their search for an exit, have held preliminary discussions in recent weeks with several media companies, including CBS and Time Warner, according to people familiar with the matter.

Univision is controlled by a consortium of investors including billionaire Haim Saban. The owners are seeking north of $20 billion for the company, according to people familiar with the matter. The group bought Univision for $13.7 billion, including debt, in early 2007.

Univision has long been the dominant Spanish-language broadcaster in the US. The broadcaster's owners had been expected to take the company public in a stock offering in 2015, paving the way for them to exit, though those plans aren't set yet.

The owners had also looked to Mexican media conglomerate Grupo Televisa, which owns a minority stake of Univision and supplies much of its programming, as a possible buyer. Televisa's ability to acquire Univision rests on changes in regulatory rules capping foreign ownership in broadcasters at 25%.

While the Federal Communications Commission voted to allow exemption to that cap on a case-by-case basis last fall, a person familiar with the situation said the regulatory climate for a Televisa acquisition remains uncertain. It is also unclear whether Televisa is interested in buying the company.

Propelled by the country's rapidly growing Hispanic population, Univision's flagship network was the only one of the top five networks to increase its prime time viewership in the 2012-13 season in the coveted 18-49 demographic.