FCC to Restart Clock on Mergers

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Look for the FCC to restart its merger clocks on the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV deals this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday.

The FCC stopped the informal 180-day shot clocks on vetting the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV mergers on Oct. 22 (the Comcast/TWC review had already been stopped Oct. 3 related to another matter) while it resolved issues surrounding third-party access to competitively sensitive contracts with programmers.

The review of the merger of No. 1 U.S. cable operator Comcast and No. 2 MSO Time Warner Cable is in its 85th day, while the review of telco AT&T’s acquisition of satellite-TV provider DirecTV has reached day 76.

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John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.