What Will the Time Warner AOL and the Proposed Airline Mergers Mean for Consumers?
Aired January 13, 2001 – 2:12 p.m. ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. GENE RANDALL, CNN ANCHOR: Other merger news, American Airlines announced this week it plans to buy TWA. Five airlines would be involved in a merger package, and here to discuss all this is Mark Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America. Mr. Cooper, good to see you. MARK COOPER, CONSUMER FEDERATION OF AMERICA: Thank you. RANDALL: So this week’s biggest merger story was in fact history’s biggest merger story, AOL Time Warner now being a company onto itself. Qualitatively, what is different about this merger than others we have seen in the past? COOPER: Well this one marries the top Internet company to the top off-line content company, Time Warner. But — and it also involves a substantial number of cable TV wires. So you’ve got all of the elements of delivering the new multimedia content to the public; the facilities, the wires, the interactivi
