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American Morning
Major Move in Wireless Industry
Aired February 17, 2004 - 07:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A major move in the wireless industry today. Also, Disney a one word answer for Comcast. A lot of money talk today. Major stories to talk about with Andy Serwer, back with us now after the day off yesterday, minding your business.
Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good to see you.
A lot of stuff happening on the business front this morning.
Let's start with the big, big, big deal in the wireless business, Cingular buying AT&T Wireless. Basically what's happening here, number two and number three combining to form number one. What is Cingular? Let's check in on it.
It is a joint venture, a company owned by SBC Communications and Bell South, the number two carrier. It's got about 22 million subscribers. Verizon number one with 37 million customers. But when they put AT&T Wireless together with Cingular, you are going to get about 46 million subscribers.
Will it mean better service? It might, because, of course, AT&T Wireless scoring very low on some of those surveys by "Consumer Reports" and J.D. Power & Associates.
Also, good news for AT&T's shareholders. That stock was about $7 in November and the bid is about $15, so a nice...
HEMMER: Now, this has been rumored for a while, though, yes?
SERWER: A nice doubling up.
Well, they put themselves up for auction. And, of course, one of the things is we kept talking about Vodafone is going to buy them.
HEMMER: Yes.
SERWER: We have a little Dewey beats Truman here in some of the newspapers.
HEMMER: How about it?
SERWER: "Vodafone Leads In AT&T Wireless Bidding." No, that didn't happen. "Vodafone Seen As Buying AT&T Wireless." No, that didn't happen either. But, you know, print people get it wrong occasionally. I can say that because I'm a print person. HEMMER: You can say that. You sure can.
What did the board of Disney say? They said forget about it, we want to up the ante even more?
SERWER: Yes. They said go away for a while. They didn't actually reject it outright. I mean they said we don't want this, but they seemed to leave the door open, suggesting, perhaps, that if Comcast came back with some more money, they said we're committed to creating shareholder value now and in the future and will carefully consider any legitimate proposal that would accomplish that objective.
Translation -- give us more money.
HEMMER: That's exactly right. Come back with a better offer.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 17, 2004 - 07:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A major move in the wireless industry today. Also, Disney a one word answer for Comcast. A lot of money talk today. Major stories to talk about with Andy Serwer, back with us now after the day off yesterday, minding your business.
Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good to see you.
A lot of stuff happening on the business front this morning.
Let's start with the big, big, big deal in the wireless business, Cingular buying AT&T Wireless. Basically what's happening here, number two and number three combining to form number one. What is Cingular? Let's check in on it.
It is a joint venture, a company owned by SBC Communications and Bell South, the number two carrier. It's got about 22 million subscribers. Verizon number one with 37 million customers. But when they put AT&T Wireless together with Cingular, you are going to get about 46 million subscribers.
Will it mean better service? It might, because, of course, AT&T Wireless scoring very low on some of those surveys by "Consumer Reports" and J.D. Power & Associates.
Also, good news for AT&T's shareholders. That stock was about $7 in November and the bid is about $15, so a nice...
HEMMER: Now, this has been rumored for a while, though, yes?
SERWER: A nice doubling up.
Well, they put themselves up for auction. And, of course, one of the things is we kept talking about Vodafone is going to buy them.
HEMMER: Yes.
SERWER: We have a little Dewey beats Truman here in some of the newspapers.
HEMMER: How about it?
SERWER: "Vodafone Leads In AT&T Wireless Bidding." No, that didn't happen. "Vodafone Seen As Buying AT&T Wireless." No, that didn't happen either. But, you know, print people get it wrong occasionally. I can say that because I'm a print person. HEMMER: You can say that. You sure can.
What did the board of Disney say? They said forget about it, we want to up the ante even more?
SERWER: Yes. They said go away for a while. They didn't actually reject it outright. I mean they said we don't want this, but they seemed to leave the door open, suggesting, perhaps, that if Comcast came back with some more money, they said we're committed to creating shareholder value now and in the future and will carefully consider any legitimate proposal that would accomplish that objective.
Translation -- give us more money.
HEMMER: That's exactly right. Come back with a better offer.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
