Comcast Could Drop Bid For Time Warner Merger

Amid regulatory scrutiny, Comcast reconsiders its proposed $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable.

Gene J. Puskar / AP

Comcast is is poised to abandon its $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable, sources tell Bloomberg. An announcement could come as soon as tomorrow.

News of the merger's fate follows reports that Federal Communications Committee staffers recommended the agency issue a "hearing designation order" on the merger, one that would force the two cable companies to make the public interest case for their union before an administrative law judge. Experts say such hearings are not only exceedingly rare, but costly and time-consuming to the businesses involved. Typically, they're a good indication that FCC staffers aren't convinced the merger is in the public interest.

"When you hear those words — administrative law judge referral — it traditionally means the deal is dead," Rich Greenfield, a media and tech analyst at BTIG, told BuzzFeed News.

"This is a long, painful process." he said. "Nobody ever fights an ALJ referral."

Harold Feld, a senior vice president at Public Knowledge and a critic of the merger, echoed Greenfield's opinion. "Nobody really in the last 30 or 40 years has seen this through," he said.

In 2011, AT&T and T-Mobile backed out of their proposed merger after the FCC signaled it would take the deal to a hearing. When the Commission did, in fact, move to bring the EchoStar–DirecTV merger to trial in 2002 over anticompetitive and public interest concerns, the companies abandoned the deal.

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