Comcast Buys Time Warner Cable (1 Viewer)

If you use either of these services for your TV, this is important news for you.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/comcast-set-to-acquire-time-warner-cable/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Comcast will announce a deal to acquire Time Warner Cable in an all-stock deal worth more than $44 billion that will unite the biggest and second largest cable television operators in the country, according to people briefed on the matter. .
The surprise merger — expected to be announced on Thursday — is likely to bring to an end a protracted takeover battle that a smaller cable rival, Charter Communications, has been waging for Time Warner Cable, and will be the second major deal for Comcast in recent years to radically reshape the American media landscape.

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I wonder if they'll have to do sell-off in some markets. Like banking*, isn't there a rule against having too much of a local market?

*When banks merge, branches are sold off to other banks if the combined merger makes more than 50% of the branches in an area. Living in Indianapolis during all the bank mergers is how many banks got in the market...from Chase and NBD(is NBD still around?) buying in...after they were already a presence.

No such rule in cable. They'll just become, well, the most dominant by a big long range. Though there is some talk of them selling off some areas to Charter (smaller municipalities)

This is bound to be bad news for consumers, and the economy as a whole. Monopolies and oligopolies, like dictatorships, almost always leave us with higher prices and lower quality.

One thing to be sure of, this will be a BIG problem for streaming services like Netflix and Amazon. They will likely enter the market on a scale similar to them and NOT count the internet bandwidth you use streaming THEIR content against your monthly allowance. If they can make a good app for Roku, Apple TV, tablets, etc. then they may be able to offer more money for shows Netflix and Amazon can't get.

Too early to know, but things will be changing for sure in this area over the next 5 years.

Cable companies suck, news at 11:
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-to-Raise-Rates-Again-Adds-Broadcast-TV-Fee-127822

Un believable gall:

Time Warner Cable is also starting to charge users a $2.25 "Broadcast TV" fee next month, which as we've been discussing is something most cable operators have been doing as a way to sneakily bury retransmission fee hikes from broadcasters in below the line fees.That allows cable operators to not only sock you twice for content (since such programming hikes generally should be included in the overall cost of business and the existing rate hikes), but it allows them to misleadingly leave advertised rates the same. It also lets them increase prices for users in price-guarantees or under contract.

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Great. My two least favorite companies join forces. I used to have FiOS and loved it. But when I moved into the city, Albany has an exclusive contract with Time Warner Cable. Service is awful.Service with Comcast when I lived in Boston was nearly as bad.

Also, Time-Warner just launched yet another Sports network here in the SoCal market, an exclusive Dodgers channel. No more free Dodgers games on local TV stations like KCAL-9. The only way to view Dodgers games will be on this new exclusive channel (similar to what happened with the Lakers last year). Companies like Cox, Charter, U-Verse, DirecTv, etc want to offer the channel to their customers as an a la carte option, but, of course, Time-Warner and the Dodgers organization want it to be part of a basic tier. SoCal residents can expect their television bill to increase an additional $2-5 per month once the channel is added to their provider's lineup.

mattCR said:

No such rule in cable. They'll just become, well, the most dominant by a big long range. Though there is some talk of them selling off some areas to Charter (smaller municipalities)

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Rumors have it that it will be similar to the Time-Warner/Comcast joint buy-out of Adelphia, with areas that have no Comcast presence, such as Los Angeles, being sold off to Charter.

Time Warner officially raised rates nationwide today.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-to-Raise-Rates-Again-Adds-Broadcast-TV-Fee-127822

Time Warner Cable is also starting to charge users a $2.25 "Broadcast TV" fee next month, which as we've been discussing is something most cable operators have been doing as a way to sneakily bury retransmission fee hikes from broadcasters in below the line fees.That allows cable operators to not only sock you twice for content (since such programming hikes generally should be included in the overall cost of business and the existing rate hikes), but it allows them to misleadingly leave advertised rates the same. It also lets them increase prices for users in price-guarantees or under contract.

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Pssst, look 3 posts above yours. Again. =p

Hah! What I don't always see when mobile

i stopped watching tv 6 years or so. and got rid of cable many, many moons ago.

all my watching is done with discs i own.

it will be the only way i watch from hereon out.

mattCR said:

Hah! What I don't always see when mobile

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Love that we picked the exact quotes.

From what I've read this is far from a finished deal.It's is still subject to government approval, monopoly laws, etc. I'm hardly an expert, but from what I've been picking up, this has a long way to go if it goes through at all.

I'm a bit confused on the concern over a "monopoly" with cable companies. Where do you have a choice of cable companies? Everywhere I've ever lived on the east coast there is exactly one cable company so the merger is simply one company controlling a larger area of the U.S., not reducing choice. Cable companies have always been and will continue to be monopolies. Also, they all suck because they are all monopolies. Don't like your cable service? What are you going to do, move? The only companies competing with cable are satellite and U-verse.

Stan said:

From what I've read this is far from a finished deal.It's is still subject to government approval, monopoly laws, etc. I'm hardly an expert, but from what I've been picking up, this has a long way to go if it goes through at all.

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Unfortunately, the government does not have a particularly strong track record when it comes to restricting consumer-unfriendly mergers.