News Blog

Last week, Comcast publicly and definitively ended its bid to swallow up Time Warner Cable.

Part of the merger process involved regulatory reviews in the states, mostly around the transfer of Time Warner's franchise agreements to Comcast. In New York, the company had petitioned the state Public Service Commission to clear the way for the merger and the proceeding was pending. But today, Comcast sent a letter to the PSC withdrawing its petition and requesting that the agency terminate the proceeding.

In short, the Comcast-Time Warner review in New York is over. But the state could soon find itself working through another, similar proceeding. Media reports say that Charter Communications may make an offer to acquire Time Warner Cable.

Charter tried to take over Time Warner in 2013, but Comcast made a much more generous offer to shareholders, according to the Washington Post. Charter was also tied in to the Comcast-Time Warner merger: the company was supposed to take over some of Comcast's territories so that the mega-company could dodge some antitrust concerns.