tv Bloomberg Technology Bloomberg April 18, 2018 11:00pm-12:00am EDT
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♪ >> i'm mark crumpton in new york. you're watching "bloomberg technology." and islandwide blackout has struck puerto rico, which is struggling with an unstable power grid seven months after hurricane maria. officials say it could take 24 to 36 hours to fully restore power. some 40,000 people have been without electricity since maria struck in september. investigators from the national transportation safety board are examining the damaged southwest airlines plane that made an emergency landing at philadelphia's airport tuesday. one passenger was killed, seven others injured when debris from an engine fan blade shattered a window in-flight. sweden and switzerland are among the places the white house is
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considering for the summit between president trump and north korean leader kim jong-il -- kim jong-un. that's according to people familiar with the matter. the president confirmed he sent cia director mike pompeo last month to meet with kim. the european parliament is calling on mark zuckerberg to testify about facebook's data privacy scandal. zuckerberg had offered to send a subordinate in his place. the associated press says the eu has sent a letter to zuckerberg saying, quote, "this scandal deserves a full and thorough explanation from facebook's top manager." global news, 24 hours a day, on air and at tictoc on twitter. in new york i'm mark crumpton. , "bloomberg technology" is next. ♪ ♪ ♪
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emily: i'm emily chang from los angeles. this is "bloomberg technology." coming up, facebook is getting into chips. hopping on a larger trend as big tech brings chipmaking in-house. what it means for intel, qualcomm, and the like. plus, we hear from bill gates. why the microsoft founder told us the government has a responsibility to regulate new tech. and our exclusive with discovery ceo. what is discovery's strategy for streaming? that conversation, ahead. first, u.s. stocks edged higher on wednesday. this as investors parsed a mixed bag of earnings. the s&p 500 posted a third straight game. ibm's weak results drove the dow jones industrial average to a loss. for more, we are joined by the editor from new york for bloomberg. obviously, earnings having an impact here. a big week this week, even bigger earnings week this week. >> geopolitics had been driving this market in both directions for the last few weeks, but
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earnings are back front and center. in fact what was up today and , down today was almost directly tied to what we saw on the profit and revenue side. s&p and nasdaq posting some decent gains today. solidlye up pretty though they did sell off a little higher. five of the 11 s&p sectors rising, led by energy, industrials, and materials. the dow industrial average itself actually fell. ibm, the main drag there, shares falling the most since 2013 after its earnings report. whether or not that company was on the past that many investors thought it to be. 83 index points were stripped out of the dow solely because of ibm alone. there were some positive aspects coming out of earnings today, names like united continental, textron and csx helped give a little bit of boost in other
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areas of the market. so far, for this earnings season, it is still pretty early. about 52 companies in the s&p 500 have reported. about 41% reporting to the upside for etf beats. we haven't yet gotten to the big plate of tech earnings. we will have to wait until next week before those start to roll in. emily: lots of tech companies reporting next week. how are stocks performing? >> we are seeing a little bit of action here in some of the tech space. in fact, the large-cap, mid-cap -- mega-cap companies are back in play big-time. the nasdaq 100 is up about 3% so far this week. take a look at a company like amazon, up 7% on the week, up 1.6% today alone. also, take a look at a company like tesla. that is back in play after a couple of bad days. elon musk addressing the company's production and cost issues in a way that wall street actually appears to like.
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-- micron m surging 3% today, down 3% , earlier in the day, after the research came out with its earnings report. after macron investors released -- realized it wasn't that bad for macron, that sent shares up. netflix are up about 7% on the week, but they did give back some of their gains today, largely because there is some concern the stock may have peaked. if you want to look at the bear case for netflix, people are looking at the $18 billion plus in cost commitments they have for content. they are saying there is no way this company is going to generate enough cash to meet those obligations down the road. there is still a strong bull case for the stock, simply that subscriber growth continues to go up. there seems to be no end to that. the company has a lot of pricing power.
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that seems to be giving a lift to the company and potentially the stock. netflix is still the best performer in both the nasdaq 100 and the s&p 500 year today, up about 74% -- year to date, up about 74%. emily: thank you for breaking that down. we are joined by mark mahaney, who covers netflix. the stock on the way up. you've got it outperform. what's your take on the latest growth and can it keep up? >> i think it is sustainable. it is fundamentally an inflection point. that is when revenue growth expands. this is the one that is offering accelerating revenue growth and expanding margins because they have pricing power. they just implemented a price increase in the u.s. and internationally and there has been no slowdown. people think this package is worth $10, $11, $12, and they are willing to pay for it. they are starting to break
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through in international markets. we saw that even in really difficult markets like japan. we think it's also happening in south america and western europe. this is grabbing people's imaginations. there is a third factor. all this content the company is offering. think about it this way, for every dollar you spend with netflix on their subscription, you get access to $1 billion of content, a better deal than you can find almost anywhere, and it is resonating with consumers. we think the growth is sustainable. we like the stock even on the gap. haidi: talk about the competition. the streaming rates continue to change. apple getting into original content. netflix spending big. a lot of content out there. some people say we are in a tv bubble. can netflix continue to buck the trend? >> mark m.: that's one of the biggest bear arguments that is brought up.
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the first one is whether they can continue to spend at these levels efficiently. can they finance all that spend? the second one is what about all these other major companies like apple's and amazons? i will give you historical context. i know you know this well. netflix has always had major competition, whether it was walmart or blockbuster or amazon. i think netflix's ability to compete is what has changed, not that competitive landscape. they have gotten so much bigger, 120 million subs worldwide. that has allowed them to spend so much more. there is nobody who can economically match their spend levels in terms of content, spending $8 billion, $9 billion, $10 billion per year because nobody has the paying customer base that netflix has. the stakes are rising each and every year. i would expect that every year netflix will increase by about $1 billion the total amount of money it spends on content. chances of somebody catching up to netflix each year gets tougher and tougher. emily: of the competitors out
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there, which do you think will be the biggest challenge to netflix? mark m.: well, the two that i focus on probably the most, one is amazon and probably the other is apple. i don't think google is a real competitive threat as consumer subscription business. that is not their core competency. amazon could. i just don't think amazon wants to directly take on netflix. the golden ring is prime. they want to use video to get people to become prime members and to stay prime members, because then they will spend a lot more than just $10 per month with amazon. they will spend hundreds with amazon because they will keep buying products and services from them. then there is apple, potentially. they have the cash to do something. i just don't think they have the reach beyond the apple ecosystem. they can't play as strong in international markets, in android markets, as netflix can. they are both very substantial long-term competitors. i just think, every year that
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passes now, i think the competitive challenge or the competitive moat around netflix's business gets deeper and wider, because of the sub base and the content table spend keeps rising. emily: amazon ceo jeff bezos has just published his annual letter to shareholder. they are continuing to invest, expand the customer base, 100 million paid prime members. 2017 was the best year yet for hardware sales. amazon alexa has been incredibly popular. the most units sold in 2017 were by third-party sellers. we're going to dig into this later in the show. your reaction to those new numbers? mark m.: this is instant reaction. 100 million prime numbers. i was waiting for that number to
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come out. i'm not surprised by that. i think it's a little higher than the market would assume. i think the market was assuming 80 million, 90 million subs, not 100 million. that shows you how popular this program is. that's $100 per year each person is spending. i'm going to get this wrong. it's about $10 billion. that's all profit. they are using that to subsidize, pay for a lot of things but it shows you how popular the prime program is getting. when he says they are going to continue invest aggressively, of course he is saying that. jeff bezos has been saying that every year and that is the challenge in china to compete with amazon. it has been the key to their success. they have done it successfully. the numbers on the alexa devices, i think that is something else we will be looking at to see if we can find the rise of the third-party marketplace, which has been a key part of the story. it allows the margins to rise, too. the most interesting to me, the 100 million prime subs.
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it tells you how much platform strength this company has. i bet you that number goes to 200 million within the next three years. emily: prediction there. amazon music unlimited -- jeff bezos saying unlimited members more than doubled to 6 million. we will continue to dig through this shareholder letter and bring you more commentary with rbc capital markets' analyst mark mahaney. this is bloomberg. ♪
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plan to cut $1 billion in costs and there will be job cuts as a result of that plan. we are continuing to get headlines in on qualcomm. we will bring you more information as we have it. back to the story we were talking about earlier, jeff bezos publishing his annual letter to amazon shareholders. i want to bring in mark mahaney, rbc capital markets, who covers amazon. jeff bezos says amazon prime has surpassed 100 million paid subscribers. we are still reading through the letter. i mentioned earlier that the number of music unlimited customers has doubled. that has been the best year for hardware for amazon than ever before. what's your reaction to that? mark m.: let me tee off on two things. the 100 million prime number is probably the most important. the music streaming sub number -- there is a reasonably public we traded -- publicly traded
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company that has north of 70 million paid streaming subs. apple has been clear about how many they have, 40 million. amazon has a lot of work to do to catch up to those two. i'm not sure amazon needs to catch up to those two, but it's a nice service and it will be nice incremental business for them. the golden ring for amazon is getting people to sign up for the prime program. if music or video gets them to do that, great. it has been great. they have 100 million of these. in terms of hardware sales, this is what really matters for amazon, we think. getting about 100 million of these alexa devices out and installed, then you get an echo system, then you can get apple tax or google tax revenue, a share of all the apps sold indirectly or directly off those platforms. we are looking to see how many installed units there are of alexa devices. we think they get to the 100 million installed device alexas by the end of this year or
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somewhere in 1029 -- 2019. emily: i'm reading through the shareholder letter now from jeff bezos. jeff bezos here saying, "one thing i love about customers is they are divinely discontent. their expectations are never static. they go up. it is human nature. you cannot rest on your laurels in this world. customers won't have it. they will continue to invest for the long term." what are the highlights you are pulling out of this? >> i think that 100 million prime members is the big takeaway. a lot of familiar themes, just a highlight reel of stats we have seen over the past year. the big thing is that 100 million prime subscribers. it's something they use as a building block. it is a foundation for them. we are seeing them more and more add additional tiers to that. if you want to pay more and get music, great. if you want to pay more and get video, great. if you want to pay a little more and get amazon fresh, it has become this platform they can build on with more all a cart
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-- a la carte services to make amazon prime more valuable. emily: he talks about devices, prime video, he talks about fashion. amazon has become a destination for tens of millions of customers to shop for fashion. this is interesting, given the competition in retail, in brick and mortar retail. the challenges facing the retail industry today. do you think, mark, that amazon can become a huge player in fashion or really a go-to? mark m.: i wonder about that. they're clearly very large already in clothing and apparel. i'm not the expert on fashion, far from it. in terms of playing regular -- plain regular clothing and apparel, yes. high-end fashion, however, that may not work for amazon. it may be too hard to stretch the brand that far. that may be where the
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acquisition of a potential high-end retailer may make a lot of sense. emily: like what? mark m.: well, what's been rumored is that other high-end retailer that is based in seattle, it begins with an n, nordstrom. would amazon buy target? absolutely not. they are the leading mass-market discount retailer of the future. but would they look to a complementary acquisition of a high-end fashion retailer like that? possibly, if it's a high-quality brand, high-quality management, etc. that's amazon and fashion. we have not mentioned aws. that must be in the shareholder letter. that's where half the profits of this business are. i haven't seen the letter yet. i don't know where that is. amazon investors should be looking for the aws language. that's half of the story going forward. emily: absolutely. it is exciting to see amazon web services, $20 billion revenue run rate.
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talk to us about the growth of aws and what the company expects to see. spencer: it really is the fuel for all of amazon, and it is the thing that gets amazon a lot of leeway from investors about all of its other low-margin or even money-losing initiatives including its international expansion. without amazon's cloud computing segment amazon would have been , breakeven last year. it is fueling everything, from its investments in voice-activated devices on the alexa platform to its original video programming that is helping it get people more engaged and get amazon deeper into people's homes to its international expansion, where it is trying to replicate its success in the u.s. abroad, which is really the thing that is fueling more and more revenue growth. aws is the fuel for all of that.
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emily: he also talked about whole foods, amazon go. lots more to read here. mark, i'm sure you're anxious to take a look. spencer soper, our bloomberg news reporter. mark mahaney, you are sticking with me. we are going to talk about facebook. still ahead, turning to facebook, why the social media company is building a team to design its own semiconductors. next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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emily: now to a bloomberg scoop, facebook is building a team to design its own semiconductors. this move adding to a trend among tech companies to supply themselves and lower their dependency on companies like intel and qualcomm. in 2010, apple started shipping its own chips and now uses it across many of their own product lines.
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google has developed its own ai chip as well. joining us, sarah frier. still with us, mark mahaney. sarah, does this have anything to do with the privacy controversy that facebook is in the middle of now? sarah: no, this has much more to do with their hardware ambitions, which have been hampered by the privacy controversy, like the speaker s that it wants to build for your home that they will not be releasing next month as planned. this is more about connecting the hardware to the software. emily: so, mark, i'm sure you've been following facebook very closely. you cover facebook. you watched mark zuckerberg's testimony. you have an outperform on facebook, but the company was downgraded today. do you think all these privacy concerns, the changes facebook is making, taking less data from 16-year-olds, for example -- will this have any impact on the business, on use, and on the revenue brought in by
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advertisers? mark m.: i'm going to go out on a limb here and say no. our advertiser surveys have not shown any material change to budget allocations by marketers. i don't know whether there will be a temporary positive monthly average user or daily average user growth, but i doubt its material. i don't think there is a great alternative to facebook, unless you want to go to instagram and of course that is owned by facebook. zuckerberg did a good job on the hill last week. my guess is that this turns out to be a temporary slowdown. i think it actually creates a great buying opportunity in terms of the stock. emily: what about impending regulation? there is already legislation being proposed to enforce greater privacy controls. sarah: to counter mark's point, facebook did note in its earnings call in january that -- it's the amount of times people log into facebook daily.
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-- facebook did note in its earnings call that gdp are could affect user data. now that they are applying those rules to the rest of the world, we could see a broader impact. emily: mark? mark m.: yeah, it's possible. two points i would make. one, i don't think there would be anything in regulation that would competitively disadvantaged facebook's advertising platform versus others. on the user side, it is possible you would shake off some users, but i think the core value proposition of facebook to users continues to build over time, especially as facebook watch and maybe facebook marketplace builds out over time. emily: ok. mark m.: i think you may have a temporary issue, but i doubt it changes the long-term trend. emily: rbc capital markets analyst mark mahaney, thank you for joining us for the first half hour of "bloomberg tech." sarah frier, thank you as well. coming up tech takes on malaria. , we will talk to bill gates next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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>> president trump says he and prime minister shinzo abe will continue to work on trade and what he calls imbalances. abe says japanese investment has been gaining momentum in the u.s. and the president wants greater access for american goods in the japanese market. >> we are working on our economic partnership by reducing our trade imbalance and removing barriers to u.s. exports. the united states is committed to free, fair and reciprocal, very important word, trade.
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and we are committed to pursuing a bilateral trading relationship that benefit both of our great country. --countries. financendent: japan's official is resigning after allegations that he sexually harassed female journalists. he is denied the allegations that he says it makes it impossible to oversee the administration. his resignation is a new blow to prime minister shinzo abe as polls show rising dissatisfaction with him and his government. turkey's president erdogan called a snap election on june 24, one year earlier than expected. it should transform the economy by eliminating the prime minister's job and weakening parliament. turkey remains under a state of emergency following july 2015's
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failed coup. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> asian stocks climbing to the highest level in a month. the pain is being felt in manila. the psc sinking the most in seven months after speculations that the economy is overheating. and in hong kong, consumer stocks are the biggest based and the hong kong dollar advances in more than -- for the most in three months. -- korean won chinese fonts, five-year yields of the most in three weeks. up and crudeing highnd iron ore trading
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ahead of the opec meeting. aluminium is charging up. the metals market in mayhem here. emily: this is "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang, coming to you from los angeles. jeff bezos's annual letter to amazon shareholders is out. the stock is up in after-hours trading. some highlights from the letter amazon has exceeded 100 million , paid prime subscribers and will continue to investors to -- continue to invest to meet ever rising customer expectation. amazon had its best ever year yet for hardware sales, according to the letter. bezos said amazon will continue to invest to expand its consumer base. amazon music members more than doubled to 6 million. today's technology is playing an evermore present role in health care. it is a particularly new development in data analytics,
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as well as software and ai, which are increasingly helping to spread the impact of infectious diseases. one man who knows well the benefits of tech, bill gates, founder of microsoft and the world's second richest man. he has long been focusing his wealth outside of silicon valley, combating infectious diseases that affect the poorest. friday malaria -- at a malaria summit in london caroline hyde , caught up with the tech luminary. gates sees a lot of opportunities to combat malaria with technology. where, specifically, are the opportunities? caroline: the focus has always been on the use of big data, the ability to map and track outbreaks, to be able to target them. notably, we are also hearing the likes of google earth being able to help monitor the outbreak of diseases and the use of smartphones on the ground. it made me smile that bill gates biggestunder of the
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software company in the world thinks perhaps the key use , should be in software itself. have a listen. bill: some of the more advanced software techniques are used to model the disease. we run rich simulations. we had to create a new group in super disease modeling to use the very latest software to try and project if we get a new drug, how beneficial with that be, should we go after -- how beneficial would that be, should we go after the mosquitoes or human reservoir. esign, the advanced modeling techniques are letting us speed up that process of picking molecules and making sure they don't have side effects. so, anything that helps cure malaria, cure cancer -- that's a lot of human benefit coming out of that. caroline: technology really was front and foremost in a lot of this discussion at the malaria summit today. emily: and he has previously
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talked about how technology can be used for bad, though in this case using for good. what are his thoughts in particular about artificial intelligence? caroline: you are right. we've heard from him in the past, talking about potentially taxing robots. within artificial intelligence, he has been blogging about it himself. he is not quite convinced about the future of ai in terms of its control, its role in institutions, ensuring that artificial intelligence is in the hands of the right people. i wanted to get his view on perhaps where the future of technology goes. if it is indeed a smooth path or not. have a listen. bill: every technology brings with it both a lot of advanced. the automobile, net, is a very good thing, but it brought in huge safety challenges.
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here, where you are communicating online, the government is going to be involved in deciding what is hate speech that should be censored versus what is free speech. not a simple issue. only the government gets to draw that line. so, yes, government is very important to look at why these new technologies may need new rules to go with them. emily: -- caroline: new roles in -- caroline: new rules in the future, talking of hate speech. it made me think he was hinting at what facebook had just been facing on capitol hill. emily: gates himself was at the center of congressional testimony a couple decades ago. what are his thoughts on facebook and whether facebook and big tech at large should be better regulated? caroline: he wouldn't go as far as to say, yes, regulation is necessary, particularly for the likes of facebook. i asked him directly, should
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facebook be regulated? he seemed to think it's unavoidable, but didn't say necessary. bill: there are privacy rules. those rules will continue to evolve as people see what's going on. europe has a new round of privacy rules. every two or three years, i think you will see more activity there. caroline: i asked him, look, any advice for the man, mark zuckerberg, as he comes up in front of regulators. he is a man who has experience in it. he just gave a smile and seemed to think these things will come, emily. emily: all right. bloomberg's caroline hyde, live in london. thank you for that interview with bill gates. sticking with philanthropic tech giants the man just ahead of , bill gates is trying to make his mark against cancer. the jeff bezos-backed startup is isled grai; amd os -- and
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seeking to raise $1 billion ahead of its planned ipo. it plans to list in hong kong this year. it is strung to create screenings that can diagnose people with early stage cancer before they show any symptoms. another investor, none other than bill gates. coming up, at&t and the doj are squaring off in court and the big names are taking the stand. what went down in antitrust court, next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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and perhaps offensive purposes. and any efforts to make it easier for the pentagon to work with the private sector would be welcome. one problem, his former employees do not career best do not agree. over 3000 employees wrote to the current ceo demanding an end to deals that let the military use the company's ai technology. at&t versus doj trial is well underway. it just had its equivalent of a star witness taking the stand. the time warner ceo had one response to every part of the government's attempt to block at&t's $25 billion acquisition of the company. that was that it, quote, "makes no sense." he added that the deal wouldn't gain leverage over the company -- competition or raise prices for its programming. here now to tell us more, david mclaughlin. what do you make of these remarks today in court? david: well, it's -- he was
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pretty consistent with the story that at&t and time warner have been telling since the lawsuit was filed, and that is that the doj's claim that they are going to come together and gain extra leverage over other distributors and raise prices on other distributors for time warner content, that that in turn would raise prices on consumers -- that that whole story is completely wrong, because time warner wants to sell its programming to as many distributors as possible, especially over the top distributors that are emerging right now. so, that was his story on the stand. as you asid, throughout -- said, throughout the questioning, he kept saying the doj's case doesn't make any sense. emily: of course, this move is in part to fend off competitors like netflix. netflix specifically was mentioned and in what?
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-- context? david: netflix and other subscription services, over the top streaming services, like sling tv, these are the competitors that both at&t and time warner are concerned about. so, time warner's message to the judge today was that, to offer similar services with its own programming, it needs at&t's distribution through directv and directv now to go directly to consumers and also to collect data that is going to make advertising more valuable. it wantsssage is that butffer the same services it wants to be able to control it thinksm itself and it can more efficiently sell to consumers through direct tv now.
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emily: at&t seems to be favored to win right now. is that a fair assessment? if so, why? david: well, that's what the -- that's what a lot of observers, lawyers, and economists who have been watching the trial for the past few weeks seem to think. that view comes down mostly to the government's economic expert, a professor at the university of california berkeley. and the criticism of him was that his model for predicting the price increases from this deal is very theoretical. it does not -- it sort of ignores a lot of real-world data, like blackouts that have happened in the past between distributors and programmers. the view is that the companies have done a pretty good job sort of pointing out those -- that those inputs aren't based on real-world facts. he also had the judge at one
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point after he testified basically saying he was very confused by his testimony. that was not a good sign for the government. emily: so, the judge seems skeptical then. what happens if the government loses? david: well, if the government loses, this merger would go ahead. i think there is some question about whether the judge could or would be able to put conditions on the deal. one of the conditions that time warner and at&t have offered is, they have said to distributors, if we have a dispute over programming, we won't go dark on you. we won't pull time warner programming during a arbitration processn -- during an arbitration process. that should address any fears you have of losing that content. plenty of distributors have criticized that, nonetheless, because it doesn't include hbo, for example. there is some question whether the judge might want to tweak that or suggest ways to tweak
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that. or he could just let the deal go through as is. i think we should just because because wecautious do not know what the judge is going to do and we won't know for probably a couple months. emily: all right. bloomberg's david mclaughlin. thank you so much for keeping us updated. the nba's new professional video game has signed a multiyear broadcast contract with amazon's twitch. the deal allows them to stream almost 200 games, including tournaments, playoffs, and finals. twitch will have exclusive broadcast rights to the 2018 season. the nba 2k league is a joint venture with take two interactive software. starting today, you will be able to go to the movies in saudi arabia for the first time in more than 35 years. amc is opening a theater in riyadh. the first film will be blockbuster "black panther."
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the ban was lifted five months ago, part of the crown prince's plan to open up the country. coming up, disrupting the disruptor. for year, discovery's ceo was upending the table to the landscape. this is bloomberg. ♪ -- four years discovery's ceo , was upending the table to the landscape. this is bloomberg. ♪
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emily: qualcomm has appealed a $1.2 billion fine imposed by the european union for loyalty payments to apple. the e.u says qualcomm offered significant amount of money and rebates if apple only used the company's computer chips. chinese investors poured $1.4 billion into private u.s. biotech firms in the first quarter.
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according to pitch book that's , about 40% of the more than $3.5 billion raised. this, as china looks to become a global leader in new medicine. it's unclear whether the trade rift between the two countries could slow the investments. march was a rough month for discovery communications. viewership across their spectrum of channels fell by 10%. that includes a 20% drop for their namesake network as well as the oprah winfrey network. how is discovery adapting to the shifting media landscape? bloomberg's david westin sat down with discovery's ceo for his thoughts on whether discovery can survive the streaming wars. take a listen. >> we don't know. everywhere else in the world, we are on almost every skinny bundle. here in the u.s. where in most of them. we are not on hulu or youtube, but we are on most of the others. people love our channels. one, we think that, over time, we will get on those skinny bundles.
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we would like to partner with our distributors, because they help us build our business. and in many cases, we are. we are partnering with at&t on directv now. we partner with comcast, with charter. that's the best way to do it regionally, but there is an opportunity for us to go direct to consumer ourselves, which we are already doing in a number of areas, in cars and in sports. but we could also go to those big companies. if you take a look at what nbc, abc, cbs, and fox spent a couple, three years ago, and how much is being spent by amazon, netflix, apple, and google, that was a massive amount of share shift that's going on. these are real global companies, the likes of which we have never seen before. if any one of those companies wanted to offer for $5.99 a compelling, family-friendly service, we would like to be most of it or we could be all of it and see how it goes. anywhere you go in the world and you say "discovery" or "animal planet" or "oprah," people know our brand and they value them.
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david w.: how will you make the decision about whether you go direct to consumer or through middlemen? david z.: right now, it's not a fair fight. the director consumer businesses, netflix, amazon -- we in media used to trade at above the -- about a 14 multiple. and the view now is that it is getting disrupted by some of these direct to consumer platforms that are global. there is a question of who is going to emerge and be the winner. we think, looking now, it is only the second or third inning,
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but we have carved out a very compelling spot of quality brands that people love, that we can offer globally, and we could offer them ourselves. if you look across europe or in the u.s., you see randall having to compete with those big companies. he's looking at at&t as an opportunity to own ip, to help decommoditize his platform that he spent so much media -- money on. david w.: i watched you from capital city's abc across the street as you complete -- as you created msnbc. you disrupted broadcast. basic cable. what did you learn from that experience you can apply now? david z.: patience. in that case, jack welch and bob wright were committed to try and take the broadcast business into cable. for people that were around at that time, it was pretty unusual. it is important because the business you think you're going to launch that is going to work is never the business that works. the audience is always going to tell you what they get nourished
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by. that's what our business is about. that's what most businesses are about. when we launched with the oprah winfrey network, we had a dream, oprah and i, that it was going to be about living your best life. we looked strategically at the space and said we can do this. only went out with the content, super soul sunday work terrific, but a lot of the other stuff was the audiencend went away. it took us a lot of years. we started to listen, what do you like. that's what our business is about. we don't want everyone to watch. the oprah winfrey network now is the number one network for african-american women. we have broken our company in half. we have half the company that is about growing our channels, doing what we believe we can do as well or better than anyone in the world. then there is a whole group that has to figure out, ok, how do i get over the top, what do people want when they consume content over the top.
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i think you have to be willing to recognize failure and use it kind of optimistically. good, we know that now. emily: that was discovery's ceo with bloomberg's david westin. you can catch the full interview tonight on bloomberg at 9:30 p.m. eastern time. now, back to our top story, i want to hop into the bloomberg terminal. amazon gaining in extended trading after ceo jeff bezos said the company has exceeded 100 million paid prime members. he noted that milestone in his annual shareholder letter. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." he said the e-commerce giant will continue to invest to meet ever rising customer expectations. thank you so much for watching. we are livestreaming on twitter. check us out, @technology. that's all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪
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