» Comcast-Time Warner merger:
The Justice Department and Comcast will discuss antitrust concerns today,
Comcast Corp.’s turbulent bid to acquire Time Warner Cable Inc. shifts into high gear this week, 14 months after the $45 billion deal was announced.
Company executives plan to meet with U.S. Justice Department officials in Washington today to begin in-depth discussions about whether the government’s antitrust concerns are significant enough to torpedo the merger — or if conditions could be fashioned to neutralize possible harms, according to people close to the situation spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters.
If the deal is approved, Comcast will sell the subscribers in southwest Ohio currently owned by Time Warner to Charter Communications.
The Justice Department has spent nearly a year trying to determine whether a bulkedup Comcast would choke competition. The Federal Communications Commission separately is considering whether the acquisition would be in the public interest.
Consumer groups, rival entertainment companies and Internet streaming services have long protested the merger.
But Comcast in recent weeks had several additional setbacks, including a member of the California Public Utilities Commission saying he would not support the deal. The PUC separately is reviewing whether the combination, which would give Comcast 2 million subscribers in Southern California, is in the public interest.
Critics contend that Comcast would use its muscle to stifle online streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, which compete with Comcast’s core business of providing bundles of TV channels.
Regulators are also said to be reviewing whether Comcast meddled in the affairs of Hulu, in which Comcast has a one-third equity stake. Comcast promised not to get involved in Hulu as part of its 2011 agreement with the Justice Department, which Comcast struck to win government approval to take control of NBC Universal. But some executives have alleged that Comcast applied pressure to abort a plan to sell Hulu two years ago, a claim that Comcast has denied.
“The sheer size and scope of a combined Comcast-Time Warner Cable, coupled with its incentive to protect its core video business from innovative — over-the-top’ online video providers, would allow it to threaten nascent competition in so many different ways, — a coalition of high-profile opponents wrote last week in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.