[NewsPoster]

Comcast has announced it will acquire Time Warner Cable, confirming earlier reports. The purchase will see Comcast acquire 100 percent of TWC's 284.9 million shares, worth approximately $45.2 billion, with the stock-for-stock transaction exchanging each TWC share for approximately 2.875 CMCSA (Comcast) shares, or effectively $158.52 per TWC share.

When completed, the new company will be led by Comcast CEO and president Neil Smit, and though it will bring on 11 million managed TWC subscribers to Comcast's existing collection, it is prepared to divest systems serving approximately 2 million users, bringing the entire subscriber count to approximately 30 million accounts. The combined company is expected to achieve cost savings of around $1.5 billion, with both services also set to combine each others products, such as the StartOver live program restart feature and the LookBack three-day archive function.

The supplied press release states that end users will benefit from a "superior video experience, higher broadband speeds, and the fasted in-home Wi-Fi." Businesses will be able to use advanced services such as "high-performance point-to-point and multi-point Ethernet services and cloud-based managed services," as well as complimentary advertising platforms.

Due to its size, the deal will receive a considerable amount of scrutiny from US regulators, as well as from shareholders, and therefore will take a long time to pass through all stages. Even so, Comcast believes the acquisition will close by the end of 2014.

[Inkling]

Oh great, the giant cable company I learned to hate in Seattle because it had no real competition is going to buy out another giant cable company so there will be even less competition. At least I've now moved beyond the reach of either to a college town that, wonder of wonders, has two cable/broadband providers.

[DiabloConQueso]

Ah, fuck.

[kerryb]

getting ready to pay more for less.

[gprovida]

It is hard to imagine this being approved. It reminds me of ATT trying to buy TMobile only worst, there is no Verizon and the geographic isolation means effectively no competition. At a minimum they would need to give up all media companies they own.

[edac2]

So Comcast is buying Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion dollars. Time Warner Cable has 11 million customers. At an average of $100/year (my guess) that's $1.1 billion dollars per year in fees. In other words, those 11 million customers could have free cable for 41 years for that amount of money. Want to bet rates will go up instead?

[rkehlor]

Ooh, so are we Time Warner customers going to get to experience ComCast's craptastic user interface on their cable boxes? Time to ditch and get FiOS. Comcast's UI is so horrible that it makes me shake. (Not that TimeWarner's is a thing of beauty, but at least it's usable...)

[Foxypaco]

I find these comments hilarious because I know a lot of people who have Time Warner Cable and hate it so much that this is a welcome change for them.

[DiabloConQueso]

Unfortunately, for those unhappy with Time-Warner, this merger is a downgrade.

For those unhappy with Comcast, this merger is a downgrade.

This is like two crappy companies merging in hopes of doubling their crappiness.

[mikegraham88]

@edac2 Re-read your comment and redo the math. I doubt customers are paying less than $9 a month for their cable bill.