Must-Have Nature of Turner Content Fought Over in AT&T/TW Trial

DOJ and AT&T/Time Warner counsel continued to joust Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington over Turner's alleged market power. Meanwhile, citing unspecified legal issues with confidential business information, Judge Richard Leon Monday afternoon held proceedings behind closed doors and said there wouldn't be any witness testimony until Tuesday. John Harran, Turner senior vice president-business development, digital distribution and strategic partnerships, acknowledged under DOJ questioning that he wrote a March 2016 internal Turner email indicating Turner believed it could "ignite or diminish" interest in the burgeoning field of virtual MVPDs by being in programming bundles or not. He also acknowledged writing an October 2017 internal email indicating "we have the leverage" in talks with YouTube TV, and an October 2016 internal email saying Hulu's virtual MVPD service without Turner or NBCUniversal content would be a recipe for disaster for that service. He said it was possible NBCU would pull its content from Hulu after the expiration of the Comcast/NBCU consent decree. But Harran, under AT&T/TW questioning about the October 2016 email, said he wasn't predicting Hulu's business failure but the failure of its business goal that hoped to have as many networks as possible. The sides also disagreed about AT&T Vice President-Digital Strategy and Experience Devin Merrill's emails and what they say about AT&T strategy for highlighting its DirecTV satellite service over its less profitable DirecTV Now streaming service. Merrill denied he was ever instructed to de-emphasize DirecTV Now and said with its 2016 launch he had "crystal clear" objectives to market and grow the service. DOJ and AT&T/TW have repeatedly battled over the supposed must-have nature of Turner content (see 1804020019 and 1803280025).