Comcast-TWC Merger Is Dead

CNN Money reports:

Comcast is planning to walk away from its $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable after pursuing it for more than a year. The decision comes amid intense, possibly insurmountable scrutiny of the deal by government regulators. It is an extraordinary turnabout for a cable giant not accustomed to losing. The deal would have reshaped American media and given Comcast unique control over the market for broadband Internet. But on the bright side for Comcast, the deal has no "breakup fee" -- industry parlance for a financial penalty for giving up on the merger. The collapse of the merger, first reported by Bloomberg News on Thursday afternoon, came one day after a series of meetings between the cable companies and government officials. The officials shared a long list of reservations about the proposed combination of two cable and broadband companies and indicated they may take action to block it.

The formal announcement will come today.

Tweet Of The Day - RCN

RCN is responding to people bitching at TWC on Twitter.

Argh II: The Suckening

Eighteen hours into the TWC outage and according to their perkily apologetic Twitter feed, service will be restored to the Upper East Side sometime between Friday and five minutes ago. Meanwhile 150,000 UES residents are overloading the TWC phone system and swarming the coffee shops and McDonald's that have other providers. At the moment I'm in a midtown Starbucks below the outage but there are no seats and no power outlets. Of course. I shall safari further...

Bill Donohue: Cancel Bill Maher

"The board of directors at Time Warner cannot distance themselves from Bill Maher any longer. On Friday night, Maher teed up Dan Savage, another anti-Catholic bigot. What happened was particularly vicious. Maher commented on gay couples who adopt children, alleging that a Hawaiian bishop said these kids had a greater chance of committing suicide. Here is how Savage responded: 'That’s total bulls***. He’s confusing children of gay parents with children who are raped by Catholic priests. Sorry, I am just done being lectured about children and their safety by Catholic-f***ing bishops, priests, cardinals.' Shortly thereafter, Savage again remarked about 'kiddie-f***ing Catholic priests.' We are sending to every member of Time Warner’s board of directors a copy of 54 anti-Catholic statements made by Bill Maher on TV. Friday’s show concluded the season. The time has come to close this show once and for all." - Catholic League blowhard Bill Donohue. TMZ has picked up his demand.

Glenn Beck Vs Time Warner Cable

Via Glenn Beck's The Blaze:

Many Time Warner Cable customers are unhappy about the company’s recent decision to add the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera America to its channel line-up while maintaining there are no concrete plans to offer TheBlaze TV. Customers flocked to Time Warner Cable’s Facebook page to express their frustration, many of them threatening to cancel their service if the provider refuses to pick up TheBlaze TV. “Al Jazeera?!? Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me. Add the Blaze or I’m gone,” one Facebook user wrote. “I am a Time Warner customer for my internet and cable. If you don’t add the Blaze, you can say goodbye to me forever!” another wrote.

Al Jazeera entered the US market back in January when it bought Al Gore's Current TV for $500M. (Gore had declined to sell the channel to Beck.) Beck's web-channel has 300,000 subscribers at $99/year.

CBS & Time-Warner End Cable Feud

But not before everybody missed the US Open. Just in via press release:

CBS Corporation and Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have reached an agreement for carriage of CBS owned stations on Time Warner Cable systems across the country, as well as Showtime Networks, CBS Sports Network and Smithsonian Channel, it was announced today by representatives for the companies. Programming on all networks will resume at 6:00 PM ET today. Though specific terms of the deal are not being disclosed, the agreement includes retransmission consent, as well as Showtime Anytime and VOD, for CBS stations on Time Warner Cable systems in New York (WCBS and WLYW), Los Angeles (KCBS and KCAL) and Dallas (KTVT and KTXA.)

The blackout began one month ago today.

Time Warner - Thanks For Your Patience

The CBS blackout is in its third week.  If it continues into the start of the NFL season, people are really going to start losing their shit.

NEW YORK CITY: Time Warner Donates Technology Lab To Ali Forney Center

Just in via press release:

Time Warner Cable today announced it has selected the Ali Forney Center (AFC), the nation’s largest services and advocacy organization working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) runaway and homeless youth, to be the recipient of a Time Warner Cable Learning Lab. This grant provides a state-of-the-art technology center for the young people served by the non-profit organization. Time Warner Cable will provide a $50,000 grant to outfit the Learning Lab with new computers, printers, computer software, tablets and HD televisions. In addition, Time Warner Cable Business Class will provide complimentary high-speed Wideband Internet to power the Lab, as well as HD DVR and TV services.

“Time Warner Cable is excited to offer a TWC Learning Lab to the Ali Forney Center, the first LGBT services organization to receive this state-of-the-art facility from us,” said John Quigley, Time Warner Cable’s Regional Vice President of Operations for NYC. “Time Warner Cable is proud to partner with an organization that serves as a strong voice for homeless LGBT youth in NYC and across the nation. The Time Warner Cable Learning Lab will feature programs and resources that will assist youth in their educational and career development needs as they grow from adolescence to adulthood.”

Fantastic.

True Blood For Time-Warner Cable

Time Warner Dumping AOL

Almost a decade after the most famously failed merger in history, Time Warner is finally casting off AOL.

The divorce, announced Thursday, will spin out AOL as a separate Internet company run by former Google Inc. advertising executive Tim Armstrong. He was hired in March to try to restore the luster to a brand once known as America Online. Time Warner owns 95 percent of AOL and will buy out Google Inc.'s 5 percent stake during the third quarter. From there, AOL will be spun off into a separate publicly traded company around the end of the year.

AOL bought Time Warner for $147B in 2001. Within two years the value of the merged company had plunged $100B.

While The Iron Is Hot

Immediately on the heels of Apple's unveiling of their new movie download program comes word that Time Warner Cable is planning to test a new pricing model that charges broadband users based on the amount of data they download in a given month.

Under the experiment, TWC will offer customers four tiers of service starting with an introductory level that allows users to download 5 gigabytes of data per month, and steps up to 10, 20 and 40-gigabyte plans, a source said.

Connection speeds rise with the size of plan. Users who exceed their allotted data plan would be charged a still undetermined metered rate. A company rep said the average user will see no meaningful change in the speed of their connection or the amount of data they download per month. The heaviest downloaders are said to represent 5 percent of the company's user base, but can hog as much as half of the available bandwidth.

Time Warner will begin testing the new billing plan in Texas. Last year Comcast admitted to throttling the broadband signal of its users that were transferring large amounts of data.