Bright House Networks also to be acquired as part of major cable TV deal
During a special meeting held Sept. 21, shareholders of Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable have approved Charter’s $56 billion purchase of Time Warner.
At the same meeting, Charter announced its acquisition of Bright House Networks, another television and Internet service provider, for $10.4 billion.
According to a statement from Charter, each deal was approved with more than 99% of shareholders voting in favor.
Charter previously tried to purchase Time Warner Cable in 2013.
In 2014, Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, attempted to buy Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion, but that fell apart in the federal regulatory review process.
Charter serves some 6 million customers in 29 states; the company is headquartered in Stamford, Conn., and employs 23,000 people.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, Time Warner Cable is the fourth-largest multichannel video programming distributor in the country, while Charter is the seventh-largest and Bright House is the 10th-largest.
The new combined company will be the third-largest multichannel video programming distributor in the country serving about 17.3 million customers. Further, the new company will have a combined 19.4 million broadband subscribers, making it the second-largest broadband Internet provider in the U.S. with customers in 40 states.
Bloomberg Business reports that FCC regulators have questioned Charter officials about how the company has fared in regards to competition with over-the-top video providers like Netflix or Hulu. Similar questions were also posed to Time Warner Cable.
In the extensive FCC documents, the agency requests myriad information and supporting paperwork related to everything from a physical description of the companies’ network backbone infrastructure to interconnection agreements and traffic management policies.
