On May 26, cable providers Charter Communications, Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. announced a $56.7 billion merger. Charter has also announced that it acquired Bright House Networks (owned by the Advance/Newhouse Partnership) for $10.4 billion.1 If approved, the company — dubbed New Charter — will become the second largest broadband and third largest cable provider in the U.S. with 19.4 million and 17.3 million subscribers for services respectively. 1 Charter, TWC, and the Advance/Newhouse Partnership filed applications with the FCC on June 25 seeking approval to transfer control of all associated FCC-issued licenses and authorizations in connection with the merger.2 The proposed merger is drawing a lot of attention and a bit of criticism — most notably — because of the recent scrapped merger between Comcast Corporation and TWC. The merger would have propelled Comcast into an unreachable 30 million managed subscribers while netting an estimated $1.5 billion in operating efficiencies.3 Recent news coverage in Multichannel, Forbes, MediaPost, AdAge and Variety has highlighted public comment on the merger.
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