New Reports: Comcast to Walk Away from Merger

Following up on yesterday's short post, we get word this morning via Alex Sherman at Bloomberg that his sources indicate that Comcast will drop their intended merger with Time Warner Cable.

Comcast Corp. is planning to walk away from its proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, after regulators decided that the deal wouldn’t help consumers, making approval unlikely.

A formal announcement on the deal’s fate may come as soon as Friday, said one of the people, who asked not to be named discussing private information.

This development comes just after word leaked out that the FCC was planning a hearing on the merger - which by most accounts meant that the merger was dead in the water.  Bloomberg's story confirms that Comcast would rather walk away then fight through that process.  In light of this, another player may come into the picture.  Charter Communication may seek to acquire Time Warner themselves.

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What this means for Dodger fans is hard to gauge at the moment. It had been widely reported that the expansion of the SportsNet LA channel throughout Los Angeles was dependent on a successful merger between the two cable giants.  Now that this appears to be dead there's increased uncertainty about when the remaining 70% of homes will get the channel. 

Who knows, maybe never.

I jest, of course.  But, I will say that I wouldn't count on anything happening right away.

I recently wrote this is a thread on reddit regarding the matter:

From what I understand it's a partnership between TWC and the Dodgers, and right now they are not making money because of the lack of RSN coverage. If there is no merger than the RSN coverage doesn't change and SportsNet LA continues to lose money since they are obligated to pay the Dodgers regardless. The only way to change that situation is to force a renegotiation of the original contract... At least, that's my assessment of the situation.

I fear that something like the above will happen, and it will ultimately lead to a long-drawn-out process before there is coverage throughout Los Angeles.  We could be talking years.

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