Big company names like AT&T may raise fears in some. But this may be related to the past, when it was a more pure-play communications company. The Time Warner deal is all about vertical integration.

"Consumers hate advertising," said NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt at a New York City TV business event Tuesday. "People are running away from advertising in droves. That is the crux of the problem. How do we stop that from happening?"

Future digital distribution services of TV networks will yield, at least initially, much smaller profit margins than Dish and other pay TV providers receive for their respective pay TV platforms.

President Trump has a new online business called TrumpStore.com that sells all kinds of merchandise -- much of it golf-related. All profits go to the Trump Organization. His earned media value, given his endless TV exposure, helps promote his ongoing business ventures.

Dish has taken the retrans battles up a notch -- asking subscribers to call on local TV advertisers to take action. What kind of response does it expect?

The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit to stop the AT&T/Time Warner deal in an effort to halt industry consolidation. It wants AT&T to sell off businesses or the deal will be stopped. Strangely, it has no objections to a Sinclair-Tribune merger.

CBS Corp. and Dish Network are at odds about a future deal to carry CBS networks on Dish services. Dish -- among other cable, satellite, and telco pay TV providers -- has seen steep declines in pay TV subscribers.

New tech comes as local TV stations look to modernize to better compete with new digital media players, which have plenty of valuable targeting and ROI metrics, but not the scale that TV stations have.

Down the road, the cost of content could be an issue as more traditional TV content providers get squeezed by higher costs and more competition.

Reports have lingered for more than a week that the DOJ will file a lawsuit demanding that AT&T, as part of its proposed deal to buy Time Warner, should be required to sell off key parts of the company, particularly CNN, to gain approval -- even without any antitrust concerns.