Reports this morning suggest that Charter has found a new target for its consolidation goals. They are said to be in talks to acquire Bright House Networks in a deal that could be worth $12B.
Last year’s big cable soap opera saw Charter as the odd man out when Comcast and TW Cable did their deal. Charter later was thrown a few potential table scraps from that purchase, which remains in regulatory limbo. If the deal comes to fruition before regulators makes their decision on the Comcast/TW Cable deal, it could raise the pressure another notch just by making the cable industry look even less competitive.
Bright House is owned by the billionaire Si Newhouse Jr, and as the #6 cable MSO serves some 2.5M customers across six states. It’s a rather smaller meal for Charter than TW Cable would have been, but probably much more digestable.
Charter (plus Comcast divestitures) |
Bright House Networks |
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Categories: Cable · Mergers and Acquisitions
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Any franchise maps you can add to the article?
I was just looking for those. I have added a couple linked maps to the article. Not very detailed, but enough to get the idea.
Brighthouse is married to TWC. Content contracts and Internet bandwidth from TWC power BHN. Comcast didn’t have a suitable answer for the TWC-BHN split after Comcast eats TWC, so this is Charter’s answer.
Cable provider map:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/01/12/picture-1000-words-us-cable-provider-map/78308/
How long before we know what really happens?