A surge to merge Loud ’n’ proud

Malone weighs in on pay-TV deals

Liberty Media boss John Malone said Monday he’s glad that Charter didn’t end up in a deal for all of Time Warner Cable.

Libertybacked Charter’s shareholders are better off with only parts of the New Yorkheadquartered Time Warner Cable, he said.

Charter has a deal with Comcast to take over 3.9 million Time Warner Cable subscribers either directly or through management of a spinoff, should Comcast win government approval to acquire Time Warner Cable.

Speaking for a short time at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, Malone said that Charter “is in a beautiful position to reinitiate discussions with Time Warner Cable,” if the government blocks Comcast’s deal. Though he added: “That’s not something we expect.”

Liberty’s John Malone wonders if regulators shouldn’t set one big M-Day rather than do the media mergers one at a time.

Malone initiated a round of consolidation late last year with a plan for Charter to scoop up Time Warner Cable in a hostile bid. The onetime “King of Cable,” however, lost out after Comcast CEO Brian Roberts swooped in and agreed to pay more.

Separately, Malone wondered how the FCC would deal with a slew of media-industry mergers currently on its books. They include AT&T’s $48.5 billion bid to acquire satellite operator DirecTV and a possible Sprint/TMobile combination.

He wondered if FCC chief Tom Wheeler would look at the payTV deals as three separate transactions or consider them in tandem.

The FCC may also have to consider 21st Century Fox’s proposal to acquire Time Warner. Time Warner has rejected that bid.

It seems Malone and his sidekick, Greg Maffei, don’t view that consolidation as great for their cable assets, which would likely pay more for cable programming if the deal comes to fruition.

Libertarian Malone also got in a dig at the current administration, suggesting that the complex web of Liberty-related stocks and spinoffs were “much more transparent that the Obama administration.”