WASHINGTON — A top executive at AT&T, senior executive VP and general counsel David McAtee, took to the Web to make a case for the telco’s $108.7 billion bid for content giant Time Warner Inc. — an appropriate venue, since access to Web content will be a key factor in the regulatory review of the deal.

In a post to AT&T’s corporate blog, McAtee argued that the transaction would be a revolution in video distribution.

The merger would build on the company's 2015 acquisition of satellite-TV provider DirecTV, McAtee argued, saying that buy combining Time Warner’s  programming assets — the Warner Bros. TV and movie studio and CNN among them — with a wireless provider, the deal would transform video and the mobile Internet. 

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The deal was all about delivering content to consumers the way they want it and would "ignite innovation and help the combined company better compete with "entrenched cable companies," McAtee said.

That was the same pitch AT&T made for the DirecTV deal and the same theory behind its U-verse TV platform, though that telco TV product did not become the video competitor AT&T had hoped it would be.

But now the competition is in the online space.

McAtee suggested the deal would be a boon to online access to content — a big issue for both the chairman Tom Wheeler-led Federal Communications Commission and for the Obama administration. “Together, these two companies will help build a new online video ecosystem that features broader distribution of Time Warner’s content, ignites innovation for all viewing platforms, and spurs greater investment in the nation’s broadband infrastructure, particularly ultra-fast 5G wireless networks that will one day compete head-to-head” with traditional offerings, he said.

He was hitting all the right notes for an FCC concerned about the issue of limiting rights to online content, an issue that came up with regards to Charter and Time Warner Inc.-owned premium service HBO in Charter’s deal to acquire Time Warner Cable. (Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Inc. were separate companies.)

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“Because the video ecosystem is rapidly evolving in unforeseeable directions, it has been difficult for major content producers and distributors to negotiate contracts with the digital rights necessary to support the full range of potential innovation and experimentation and to respond quickly to today’s fast-changing marketplace,” he said. “Bargaining friction over these rights has limited the scope of video innovation and perpetuated conventional distribution models that benefit incumbent cable companies, which still dominate traditional television distribution and ultra-fast broadband services, already control substantial content, and now intend to move into mobile as well.”

The first combination of a national mobile broadband provider with a content provider as an “anchor tenant” will be a boon to video choice, McAtee said.

Deal critics are already on the record saying they fear that the combined company could discourage competing programmers or distributors, but McAtee said that, “of course,” its offerings would “include content from many other providers.”

The Wall Street Journal, whose parent, News Corp., also owns Fox, gave IAC chairman Barry Diller -- former head of Fox -- op ed space Thursday to defend Aereo, the online TV station delivery service Fox is opposing as a copyright infringer.

Diller is a minority investor in Aereo, and he took aim at the Obama Administration for not backing Aereo.

Diller's piece comes days before the Supreme Court is to hear oral arguments in the case on April 22.

In the piece, Diller says that broadcasters don't own the airwaves and shouldn't be allowed to keep viewers from watching free TV on the device of their choice via an "antenna in the cloud."

"[B]roadcasters claim Aereo is "stealing" their content. Why is the industry pushing to punish those who wish to receive their television through airwaves, which are not owned by broadcasters? The answer is obvious: Broadcasters make more money when consumers are steered away from over-the-air program delivery and toward cable and satellite systems that pay the broadcasters retransmission fees."

Diller took aim at the Administration for backing broadcasters in the fight. "Broadcasters have now corralled the White House into joining their efforts to crush any innovation that challenges the status quo and the industry's lucrative business model," he said.

The Solicitor General's office filed a friend of the court brief in support of broadcasters saying Aereo's delivery of over-the-air TV signals via the Internet without payment is a public performance in violation of copyright.

The SG's office also agrees with broadcasters that the Supreme Court can rule against Aereo without calling into question the entire cloud storage regime.

"No one has offered any coherent factual or legal basis that justifies the broadcasters'—and now the administration's—attempts to condemn consumers to the use of an antenna from a bygone era," asserted Diller. "It is unfortunate that the broadcasters and the administration have aligned themselves against competition, choice and the consumer. The Supreme Court should set them straight."