By Shalini Ramachandran
With only days left in the first quarter, cable giant Comcast
Corp. has once again pushed backed the expected closing date for
its acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc.
Comcast said in a blog post Wednesday that it now expects the
megamerger to close in the middle of the year, a delay from its
earlier guidance that the deal would be completed in "early" 2015.
Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said recent regulatory
delays, including the Federal Communications Commission's decision
this month to pause its informal "shot clock" for completing the
review, contributed to the decision to revise the time frame.
Comcast's proposed $45 billion takeover, which would unite the
two largest U.S. cable companies and create a behemoth in broadband
access and pay television, has been under intense scrutiny from
regulators since it was announced more than 13 months ago. The FCC
has asked for large amounts of information from the merging parties
and their competitors, resulting in millions of pages of documents
for the agency to sift through as it weighs whether the deal is in
the public interest. The merger will require approval from both the
FCC and Justice Department.
One major cause of the delay has been a dispute between big TV
channel owners and the FCC over the confidentiality of programmers'
contracts with Comcast and other pay-TV providers. AT&T Inc.'s
$49 billion deal for DirecTV has also faced delays in the review
process due to this dispute, which is playing out in D.C. federal
court. In February, the court heard arguments in the case, but it
hasn't yet issued a decision. Comcast has said that the court case
is a "procedural matter" unrelated to the merits of its Time Warner
Cable takeover. The FCC's 180-day review, which would have expired
at the end of March, had been put on hold pending the court
decision.
As of mid-March, Comcast still hadn't begun the process of
negotiating with regulators over conditions for possible approval,
The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. While AT&T has
started those talks, it has yet to tackle major issues, the Journal
reported.
Write to Shalini Ramachandran at
shalini.ramachandran@wsj.com
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