Comcast Joins the Charter/TWC Dance

January 28th, 2014 by · 4 Comments

Well, whatever Charter offered to Comcast from a potential deal for TW Cable got their attention. Reports now say that Comcast is at least partially on-board to help Charter make a three-way deal actually plausible. 

Supposedly, if the stars align and this deal goes through, Comcast would be purchasing several lucrative eastern pieces of TW Cable covering some 3M subscribers, including the big NYC market, a bunch in North Carolina, and some more in New England. It hasn’t been said, but if the North Carolina markets go to Comcast, I’m guessing the DukeNet assets would go along with them.

John Malone, whose Liberty Media owns a big chunk of Charter and who is said to be pushing for this bit of consolidation, seems to have his ducks lining up in a very nice row. Now all he has to do is to get TW Cable to say yes, which they have been rather reluctant to do, and for regulators to stand aside and let them get on with it.

TW Cable rebuffed Charter’s most recent effort, which prompted the latter to take their offer public to add pressure. With Comcast in the mix, the back room is back in charge and the extra cash Comcast can bring to the table for such assets would allow Charter to raise the cash portion of its bid.  But the threat to air a bit more dirty laundry in public is still out there — as is some resentment for having done it already.

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Categories: Cable · Mergers and Acquisitions

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4 Comments So Far


  • Anonymous says:

    If I lived in a TWC market, I would be campaigning against Charter taking over TWC.

    I think that is a moot point, because the deal wont work. TWC is probably thinking the same thing.

    Charter isn’t making money and is $20B in dept. How could they take on another $60B in dept and have the cash flow to continually expand the network and service offerings to stay relavant? Servicing the dept alone would cost more than their current revenues.

    Comcast needs NYC, Dallas, and LA, so I don’t see them settling for NYC and a bunch of mediocre markets.

    This deal might work if Charter only takes about 1/3 of the assets and either picks up a third buyer or negotiates a deal in which Comcast gets the majority of the markets.

    If its the latter, than why wouldn’t Comcast just take the lead and sell enough martkets to appease the FCC?

  • Charter is deflated says:

    It looks like you hit this on the head. The rumor is that Comcast will have to sell off 10 percent of the connects to appease the FCC. Tucson and Tenn? Riverside?

  • NC dude says:

    Hey don’t bash the Carolinas as mediocre markets! Charlotte and Raleigh are consistently in the top 10 fastest growing US cities…Charlotte is the new Atlanta.

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