The Week The Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal Died

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"Once you get through the hysteria, [this transaction] is pro-consumer, pro-competitive and strongly in the public interest," Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen told reporters in February 2014 when the nation’s biggest cable TV and broadband service provider announced it would purchase Time Warner Cable, the number 2 provider. Fourteen months later -- hysteria duly subsided -- and it appears regulators may not agree. On the morning of April 24, 2015, Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts said, “Today, we move on. Of course, we would have liked to bring our great products to new cities, but we structured this deal so that if the government didn’t agree, we could walk away.” And, with that, the deal was dead.

With Comcast's announcement, we are and will be seeing lots of post-game analysis on why an army of 128 lobbyists couldn't sell this deal to regulators. Pro Publica's Leticia Miranda pointed to: 1) TV program stifling; 2) Monopoly on broadband Internet service; and 3) Comcast's broken promises in the NBCUniversal transaction. The real issue in Comcast + Time Warner Cable was broadband, just as Om Malik called it when the deal was first announced and GigaOm's Stacey Higginbotham highlighted back in November 2013.


The Week The Comcast-Time Warner Cable Deal Died