Happening between qutar and its arab neighbors. Megan a continuing fallout that keeps unfolding in the middle east between qatar and some of its neighbors. They are accusing them of harboring islamists and not cracking down on terror. It has been a longrunning incident and it is now imploding in terms of imposing bans. One of the biggest businesses affected his qatar airways. Oliver a company doing very well. Megan a favorite of Luxury Travelers in particular. Whether it is emirates or qatar airways, they have clotted for out of nothing over the past two and three decades. Moved into routes, competing on longhaul flights with some of the american carriers. There has been a big concerted effort by the american carriers, american, delta, united, to push back on that growth. Saying theyre basically getting unfair competitive advantages through their countrys amends sovereign wealth. The American Airlines would argue it props up the businesses. They are facing this much closer to home, having to redraw routes and skirt borders. Oliver big borders. Megan it will have a big effect on the business. Oliver is this something they view that they can wait out and resolve the sort of political hurdles that are there . And does not seem like it will be resolved anytime soon. Megan is a murky diplomatic incident. There are very different viewpoints, including between the president and his administration and people at the state department who say the socalled cause of this are factors that led to it and is not quite clear who is behind it, what actually happened, and whether or not it can be resolved immediately. Frankly, it is not getting enough attention because so much of the American Media and foreign media is focused on the Trump Administration writ large. Never underestimate these airlines in terms of their willingness to push forward. We would not be in the situation where we had really strong carriers, beloved carriers if they had not put so much resources into establishing these brands. Whether this is a temporary blip or longterm thing that will force him to take much bigger costcutting measures to the brand will play out in the next few months. Oliver in the features section, a great examination by Felix Gillette on a Big Media Company and a growing one. Was the most interesting part of the story to you . There is politics, media, interesting characters. Megan Sinclair broadcasting is probably the most powerful media cavity that many businessweek readers will not really have heard of. It really points to a company that has 173 stations, mostly in smaller markets. Washington, d. C. Is an example. Trying to get this deal which are being to purchase more stations has put them in the big markets like l. A. , new york, etc. What is interesting is yes, they have a chairman who is very conservative and has pushed conservative political views and does so in these news broadcasts that they do in these stations, but also as someone who has done it with almost bizarre focus on costcutting. This is not glamorous broadcasting standards, a lot of shine and razzmatazz. This is barebones media pushing these views, pushing their idiosyncratic view of things the way they deal with paid placement. We cover it in the story were some of drive to the mcdonalds drivethrough and its emerged that mcdonalds it is a media takeover by someone you have never really expected. Oliver it is a fascinating story about a company that has far reach but not a big name. The Sinclair Broadcast Group is one of the big winners in the Media Business in terms of the current mill you in washington with the Trump Administration. This company for years has been run by a family. They are a big supporter of republican politicians and causes. During the president ial campaign, after initially supporting ben carson, they threw their weight behind donald trump. Having won the election, trump has created a Regulatory Environment that is very good to Sinclair Broadcast Group. Oliver election of donald trump has been good for media because it brought in a lot of views, and has a get for this particular media group because their vision is aligned with trumps . Felix they have been running into regulations in terms of limiting ownership of local media in the United States, which is limited to 39 of the viewership for broadcast tv stations. They are really right at the limit. What happened when trump won, his appointment to lead the federal Communications Committee voted to restore an arcane rule that allows broadcasters like sinclair to discount essentially half of the audience from the uhf station. They restored this rule and weeks later sinclair announced the biggest deal in the companys history, they were acquiring Tribune Media for close to 4 billion. Oliver this company owns various broadcast stations. We are talking local news, cable, you turn on the tv and heres what happened around you. They want to essentially extend that to basically more cities and more areas . Felix they are already the largest owner of broadcast stations in the country. They on 173 stations currently. After the tribune acquisition, which is currently under review most people think it will go through. Oliver all that the dead . Felix no way that wouldve gone through Hillary Clinton won. They scored at the right candidate in, they wanted in terms of regulation change. Now this acquisition will give them another 42 stations, including stations in a lot of big markets where they traditionally have not operated. New york, los angeles, chicago. Oliver big major cities. Felix they want to have essentially a nationwide network of broadcast stations. Ultimately their goal, which they have been working on behind the scenes, is pushing the fcc to adopt a new broadcasting standard. Some people call it next gen tv. One that is approved by the fcc, which could happen later this year on a voluntary basis, Companies Like sinclair will be of the start broadcasting in these new standards which will free up a lot of bandwidth to do other things. Sinclairs vision is instead of having just one channel from the broadcast stations they on locally, they will start broadcasting a bundle of 25 to 30 channels. They also think they will be a will to sell various Data Services from those stations. It is a nationwide network and it is mobile, something you could get on your telephone or your tablet without having to pay for cellular data charges without you can watch it in your living room tv without having to pay a cable or satellite provider. Oliver of next, are facebook, google, amazon, and apple too big for their own good . Carol alibaba wants to dominate commerce. Oliver this is Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. Oliver you can also find us online at businessweek. Com. Carol and our mobile app. Oliver a growing number of scholars and regulators want to stop facebook, amazon, google, and apple from getting any bigger. Carol that may be easier said than done. Almost without noticing, these companies have gotten huge. Not just in the United States for globally. Let me throw out a few numbers because i think it really hits home. Google has 77 of the search advertising revenue. Facebook has 75 of mobile social traffic. Amazon has 70 of the ebook market. Those are monopolysized figures. No doubt they are monopolies. There is no court ruling, but this is what a traditional antitrust theory says is a monopoly. Almost without looking they have gotten so big and so well, who cares . Big is not bad. We have gotten over that issue a long time ago. There are now some study showing their bigness may have some bad repercussions. These are Academic Studies and there is enough research to show there is reason to worry. Oliver that brings us to the wind out. As a stock market reporter, we write time again about how they really been the major contributors to a lot of the bull market rally. Paula we love them. Oliver to size question has not really come under scrutiny until now. It feels like something that maybe people should be talking about. Paula it has been bubbling below the surface for quite a few years now. There is a general named namedre is a gentleman Jonathan Kaplan wrote a book called move fast and break things. He is the one who is strongly pushing this idea that these are these companies are too big. He comes from the respective of the creators of content, musicians, photographers, journalists like us, book authors. They have been robbed or cheated out of their revenue because google, facebook, amazon have cornered the market. He used to be the manager of a rock n roll band, bob dylan and things like that. Then he went on to run the annenberg innovation lab. He has a very interesting perspective. He was an m a investment banker for merrill lynch. He has an interesting perspective from all of these angles. He is one of the major pushers of this idea that they are too big. Academics have started looking at this. There are several studies showing that it is not that consumers are not benefiting. The issue is that this bigness is leading to things like inequality in wages, low productivity, the lack of startups. Oliver some answers to a lot of economic questions people have. Paula these are questions economists are asking all the time. What is productivity growth so slow . All of those roads are leading to amazon, facebook and google. Carol speaking of ambitious technology companies, alibaba once the bill of chinas Sports Industry. We are making a stronger flavor than anyone in the Chinese Market has to develop a Sports Industry that has been underrepresented in china. Oliver alibaba does not seem like they need to seek out new Revenue Sources yet. I guess it never hurts to give expanding. I wonder why they are doing this now, taking measures to break up teams and money and give it support. Jeff they just reported earnings that were well beyond most expectations. Is projected for the fiscal year ending in march they will see Revenue Growth between 45 and 49 . In seems like now is as good a time as ever to think about a 510 year window to finance this relatively tiny sports arm. A lot of runway to figure out how to build a sports market base. Oliver this not seem like something that is terribly urgent or the need to get it. It seems that it is like it lets get the ball rolling. Jeff the quotes in the story are really oliver if im reading this, this sounds pretty good. My company is, why not . Lets explore more. Jeff they are trying Different Things that are not even alibabas bread and butter. Sports merchandising beyond trying to use the companys throws of data on 500 million shoppers to figure out who should we target as to certain merchandise based in the purchasing histories or whatever based on where they live or whatever. If you bought a tennis racket somewhere in northern china, we can send you data on all the stuff you can sign up for online, all the way down to the local level online court times, coaching and that anything. Oliver there obviously are a lot of tools alibaba has to figure this out, but they are kind of battling an uphill game in which the Chinese Market does not spend a lot on Sporting Goods. They are virtually selling the sports fans, but also trying to create sports fans and get people excited about was happening around them. Jeff it is relative. The company sold or moved about 76 billion yuan worth of Sporting Goods related merchandise, about 11 billion u. S. Thats about 1 10 the size of the u. S. Market which is a lot smaller people wise. Carol President Trump rethinks his nafta strategy oliver and why House Republicans dont like the sanctions bill doubled will punish the kremlin for hacking the u. S. Election. Carol this is Bloomberg Businessweek. Oliver welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol you can listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, 99. 1 fm in washington, d. C. , and am 960 in the bay area. Oliver and in asia on the Bloomberg Radio plus at. Carol President Trump is entirely debt is antinafta rhetoric. Oliver the white house now thinks tuneup might be the next move. It turns out his plan for nafta is much more moderate than you might expect given what he was saying on the campaign trail, the worst deal ever. Oliver many, many times. It is not like this is something he threw out once. He kept hammering on the campaign trail. Even after he became president he came within a hairs breadth of just pulling out. He was persuaded not to. That was a positive sign for people who believe free trade with canada and mexico. The next stage was just this past week when the office of the u. S. Trade representative came out with an objective the u. S. Will have in talks on renegotiating the pact. They had to get congress 30 days notice before they began in midaugust. The plan is kind of modernizing nafta, not gutting it. Carol what happened between the campaign trail, and push back terrible deal, build a wall, whatever to more moderate stance . Peter a lot of people in the Business Community said in open hearings there were like 12,000 comments made on this plan actually free trade benefits United States. The benefits the people of the United States, companies, and it will be a shame to throw that away. Oliver any idea what the impetus been from our peers in this agreement on what they want . Is there a similar line of sight anywhere . Peter it looks like the reaction to the Trump Administration put out there are the makings of a deal. There are certain things about nafta that are kind of old and need to be updated. We heard from the ministers of both canada and mexico saying helpful things like, yeah, this is a good blueprint for the modernization. Oliver House Republicans are voicing objections to a sanctions bill meant to punishing moscow for interfering in the u. S. Election. Carol it would make it harder for u. S. Companies to do business in russia. Here is matthew philip. Matthew the rare bipartisan bill we have seen these days. It basically calls to tighten up existing sanctions on iran, and more portly on russia. Its an attempt by congress to basically keep the president from being able to ease sanctions on the russian government, either from their meddling in the election or from their incursion into crimea. This is a regime put in place in 2014 by the Obama Administration to crack down on russia after their invasion of ukraine. They are trying to tighten those sanctions, but it has run into problems in the house. Oliver matt, the sanctions and the motivation behind them. Sanctions in reaction to russias actions in crimea or the u. S. Election. The idea of keeping the sanctions to prevent the donald Trump Administration from easing those. What kind of language out there about what could potentially happen to sanctions . That the white house discuss lessening those . Matt congress wanted to send a message to russia. Once the Intelligence Community cant with a report last december that said clearly they meddled in our elections, this is congress trying to take a hawkish approach to russia. Also knowing perhaps the white house feels differently. They were trying to constrain president Donald Trumps ability to in the future negotiate oneonone, bilaterally with the russians and offer something on the table for them in return for who knows what. This passed on a bipartisan basis in the senate. It has run into a lot of problems in the house because Energy Companies and other Manufacturing Companies in the u. S. Caught up to this kind of late. They realized the way it is written, the way a few provisions in the bill are written, this could basically ring them out of a lot of lucrative foreign oil and gas deals. Not just in russia, but all over the world. Carol we are talking tens of billions of dollars . 100 billion over the next decade or so that he was companies, oil and Gas Companies could miss out on . Matt current sanctions that apply to russia limit u. S. Firms ability to invest in projects in the russian federation, inside russia. What this new bill attempts to do is say, if there is a Russian Company with any stake, a 1 stake in any project and any place in the world, you cant be there. That all of a sudden expands greatly the sanctions regime and would ensnare lots of oil and gas projects all over the world were coming is like exxon and chevron and u. S. Operators of foreign comedies like b. P. Would have to divest and probably lose a lot of money. The estimate is it would cost oil and gas firms in the u. S. Approximately 100 billion in the next 10 years. Carol the new subprime debt bomb in the bank to watch for signs of trouble. Oliver a car chief is doubling down on his globalist view of the future. Carol this is Bloomberg Businessweek. So we need tablets installed. With the menu app ready to roll. In 12 weeks. Yeah. The world of fast food is