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Charter Strikes $56B Deal For Time Warner Cable
mpicpp writes with word that Charter Communications has struck a $56 billion deal to buy Time Warner Cable; if the deal goes through (which the article says is likely, according to Macquarie Research analyst Amy Yong -- at least more likely than the recently scotched Comcast-Time Warner deal), it would mean that the second- and third-largest U.S. cable companies would share a letterhead, and more than 20 percent of the country's ISP market.
From the linked Reuters article: The Federal Communications Commission immediately served notice that it would closely scrutinize the deal, focusing not only on absence of harm but benefits to the public. Charter, in which Malone-chaired Liberty Broadband Corp owns about 26 percent, is offering about $195.71 in cash-and-stock for each Time Warner Cable share, based on Charter's closing price on May 20. Including debt, the deal values Time Warner Cable at $78.7 billion. A key area of regulatory concern would be competition in broadband Internet.
Surely Time Warner has learned the lesson of not being bought for funny money stock?
Because when AOL bought them with trumped up stock, somehow AOL was worth more than an entity with cable, programming,network infrastructure, move studios.
Somehow I wonder if Time Warner isn't selling the farm for a couple of magic beans (again).
And you can bet your ass this single entity will not do anything to lower prices or foster competition ... it will be more "we're screwing you because we can".
The only people this will be good for are executives who get huge severance packages. But I'm betting in the long run it hurts consumers, and quite possibly shareholders.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The merger is a bad idea, Charter is a poorly managed company and has been for a long time. Management treats their technical employees with callous disregard for personal boundaries, does not recognize or reward technical expertise or professionalism and in my case, is in the habit of lying to job reference inquiries to the point of being criminal. This is just scratching the surface of what is wrong with this company. As an internet service provider, they are sub standard in terms of providing working, reliable equipment and they are notoriously slapdash with protecting their customer's privacy and options to protect their own privacy.
My bad experience at the company aside, if an entity cannot handle and demonstrate integrity in small things, it follows that they should not be trusted with larger responsibilities.
My view is they should split up the infrastructure and the content providers.
Perhaps the municipal governments having control of the infrastructure, and we can have a choice of ISPs and other content providers.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
As a Time Warner subscriber, this is definitely a good thing.
Their equipment is trash - I no longer use their DVR or their cable modem because they are both fucking garbage. I built a media PC with an HD tuner / cable card set up that has already paid for itself by not having to "rent" their shit DVR box that I would have to reboot 2 or 3 times a week, at a 10-minute boot up time. I dumped their garbage "rented" cable modem because I'd have to power cycle it once a week or so, and replaced it with a $60 unit from Amazon that also actually increased throughput speed. That change will pay for itself in about 7 months.
They abuse DRM flagging on everything that isn't available with an over-the-air tuner. If you have to go to one of their offices to trade in equipment, or get replacement, schedule two hours because they only ever have one or two people at the counter, and there's a line of people waiting to trade in broken shit for stuff that isn't broken yet, but will be. They charge more for the same services from other cable providers, because they can - when you don't have any competition for high speed internet, you don't have to worry about other lines of business being threatened (satellite TV).
Fuck Time Warner. I hope this merger goes through and Charter fires the TWC management and starts cleaning up the huge mess they've left behind.
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