Comcast Buys Time Warner Cable, Deal Pending
Wednesday night, Comcast agreed to buy Time Warner Cable for $45 Billion. Comcast's winning bid outdid rival Charter Communications and merges two of the nation's biggest cable chains together. It's an all-stock deal where Comcast will buy all shares of Time Warner at a price point of $159.
Comcast has a mere 20% of the cable market but with the merger would have 33% of the total market. That includes the 15 million plus Time Warner subscribers to their cable, internet, and phone services.
The deal isn't quit done yet. Expects say there will be a fight from antitrust regulators, who will have to oversee the process including possible effects on pricing stemming from the two combining.
One thing to look at is the power of a company that size would have over the cable industry. Craig Moffett, of Moffett Nathanson Research, said the following in his report on the matter last year:
A company of that size would arguably have de facto control of what content could and couldn't exist in the U.S. A programmer that failed to get a distribution deal with Comcast arguably wouldn't be economically viable.
This also begs the question, what about pricing for the consumers? Will they go up? Will we get faster and faster internet that competes with international standards?
We will update you on when the merger if officially completed.
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