The Justice Department "believes that bigger is badder," which could spell big regulatory hurdles for Charter Communications buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield said Friday in a blog. Pointing to comments by Nancy Rose, Antitrust Division deputy assistant attorney general for economic analysis, at a June American Bar Association event, Greenfield said it was "very difficult to see how the government can approve the creation of a company nearly the size of Comcast ... particularly as it is far from clear what concessions would alleviate the government’s underlying concerns without true competition materializing." The Justice Department apparently isn't looking at end users as it analyzes the video and broadband markets, and thus the agency rejects the idea that cable consolidation does not affect competition since cable operators are in different geographic markets with no overlapping customers, Greenfield wrote. Instead, the Justice Department seemingly sees the content distribution markets as national, and sees the growing size and scale of multichannel video programming distributors and Internet service providers creating difficulty for new broadband overbuilders to buy affordable programming, which in turn slows their buildouts, he said. Greenfield has said before that he believes the Charter/BHN/TWC deals face steep hurdles for regulatory approval (see 1506170033).
Charter Communications subsidiary CCO Safari II plans to sell six sets of senior secured notes to help pay for the $89.1 billion acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Charter said Thursday. The notes will mature in 2020, 2022, 2025, 2035, 2045 and 2055.
Comcast's Xfinity Voice Unlimited home phone service expanded to China, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Singapore and South Korea, the company said Thursday. Through Xfinity Voice, users can make unlimited international calls to those nations and to American Samoa, Canada, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as nationwide in the U.S. Comcast is rolling out the expanded Xfinity Voice Unlimited offering in its various markets through the end of August.
Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable asked the New York Public Service Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission to accept a transfer of indirect ultimate control of TWC to Charter, said documents filed with the New York and California commissions. The transaction doesn't involve a transfer of customers or any changes in regulated rates, terms or conditions of service, and the petition doesn't seek authority to change customers' regulated rates or terms, the New York filing said. The transaction will provide improved voice and other nonjurisdictional services at better values, and offer more competition for enterprise customers, said the California filing. Charter said the transaction won't be harmful or reduce competition in the state.
Time Warner Cable shareholders rejected a shareholder proposal that would have had the company annually compile a report on what it spends directly and indirectly on lobbying and its membership in any nonprofit group involved in lobbying. The proposal, brought by Boston's Walden Asset Management, received about 61.2 million votes for and 160.5 million votes against at Wednesday's annual shareholder meeting, TWC said Monday. The TWC board recommended voting against the proposal, saying much of that information already is publicly available and it doesn't spend corporate money on Super PACs or ballot initiatives.
The residential broadband customer overlap between Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks is practically nil, Charter said in a filing posted Monday in docket 15-149. Charter, BHN and TWC provide residential broadband service in more than 1.3 million census blocks nationwide, and the number of census blocks where any two of the three overlap by both having customers is 617, the three said. Thus, of roughly 18.4 million residential customers nationwide, 19,680 potentially could be served by two or more of the three companies, they said. "And even this nominal level of potential overlap likely overstates the extent of any actual overlap," since it's likely that different cable systems operate in different parts of those overlapping census blocks, they said.
Trading began Thursday on Nasdaq and over the counter of Liberty Global's new tracking stock for its Caribbean and Latin American operations, the LiLAC Group. The company said in a news release Wednesday that the LiLAC Group stock was created to allow shareholders to invest directly in its cable business in Chile and its majority interest in a Puerto Rican cable company, Liberty Cablevision, which it and Searchlight Capital Partners bought in June.
Online video services run by cable operators shouldn't labor under the same regulations cable businesses do, Cablevision said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-261. Cablevision representatives met with FCC representatives about the agency's proposed re-interpretation of the definition of a multichannel video programming distributor to include some types of online video delivery. If the FCC does that, Cablevision said, "it should ensure that potential competitors in the online video marketplace are able to enter the market and compete on fair terms." Cablevision also asked for clarification of broadcasters' responsibilities to negotiate retransmission consent in good faith, referring to ongoing open proceedings on good-faith negotiations in docket 10-71. Meeting attendees included Cablevision lawyers and executives and front-office and other Media Bureau officials.
The definition of a cable TV "buying group" needs updating to include groups that operate like the National Cable Television Cooperative so the NCTC can see the same nondiscriminatory program access protections other buying groups enjoy, the American Cable Association said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in FCC docket 12-68. In a meeting with FCC officials, ACA and NCTC representatives said as the commission looks at program access rules, it needs to ensure buying groups "have the protection that Congress intended" and that the rights of individual members of a buying group to take part in agreements negotiated by the group are ensured. The ACA has been pushing for such language changes since 2012, saying it would let cable-affiliated programmers exclude individual members of a buying group from taking part in the master agreements negotiated by that group with programmers. Meeting participants included Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, others in the bureau's front office and Policy Division, ACA Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman and NCTC Senior Vice President-Legal & Regulatory Affairs Jeff Nourse.
As of July 1, Cable One is separate from former parent Graham Holdings, Graham said in a news release that day. Under the spinoff, Graham shareholders receive a share of Cable One for each share of Graham Class A or Class B common stock they held. Cable One will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CABO.