Comcast and Time Warner Cable to merge?

[treitz3]

This is interesting. Apparently Comcast and Time Warner Cable are merging. The CEO of Time Warner Cable has sent out an email to an unknown amount of TWC employees notifying them of a merger yet according to this link from the Chicago Tribune, TWC is to be purchased from Comcast.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-comcast-timewarnercable-20140212,0,3189585.story

Tom

 

[amirm]

The cable industry will definitely try to consolidate to increase their buying power and influence. One of the reasons is the competition from Internet providers such as Netflix.

 

[Joe Whip]

Comcast is simply trying to consolidate to wield even further influence. Yes they will be able to use their size to try to reduce the cost of the content they acquire but will NOT pass those savings off to their subscribers. In fact, the opposite will be the case. This merger will result in an ever increasing escalation of their fees to their customers. I for one would like the FCC to block the deal or if they approve it, approve it with significant teeth to prevent the fee abuses that are inevitable. Having a huge Comcast with the only significant competition from Directv will be a bad situation for us all. I just hope Verizon FiOS can hang in there in my area as their picture and internet are superb, although too pricey as well. Personally, I can't wait until the internet speeds are fast enough that you can stream all your content from the content originators directly so that we can only but the channels we want and do away with the cable bundles.

 

[treitz3]

Hello, Joe Whip. I don't believe I have talked to you yet. Welcome to the forum! I was thinking the same thing about the FCC blocking the merger but it looks like the merger will only take up 30% of the available cable areas. I thought it was much more than that. If this is the case, then I do not see any reason why the FCC would oppose such a merger. Both companies need to work on their customer service as they both have less than stellar customer satisfaction. In fact, they both rank amongst the worst in the country.

Tom

 

[BlueFox]

The cable industry will definitely try to consolidate to increase their buying power and influence. One of the reasons is the competition from Internet providers such as Netflix.

With the recent ruling that Internet providers (such as Comcast) do not have to provide open access, we will see if they start blocking some content (Netflix, etc.).