NEW YORK TIMES: A year after it was announced, Comcast’s audacious acquisition of Time Warner Cable remains in limbo as Washington regulators scrutinize the deal. No surprise there. After all, the $45 billion merger would consolidate an already-concentrated industry, uniting the two largest cable operators in the United States.
But in recent weeks, the air of inevitability around the deal has dissipated. With the Federal Communications Commission proposing stringent new rules to govern the Internet, analysts have grown more skeptical about the acquisition being approved. Investors began betting against the combination late last month, with shares of both companies falling sharply before recovering last week.
“The prospects for the deal, while they’re still not bad, have continued to go down,” said Kevin Werbach, a former F.C.C. counsel and a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia… (more)
