Mega-merger: Comcast buying Time Warner Cable

Comcast may not be satisfied until it’s bought, well, everything.

In a surprise development, the country’s biggest cable company confirmed this morning that it has reached a deal to acquire the country’s second-largest cable company, Time Warner Cable.

The all-stock deal will come in at $44.2 billion.

Comcast has about 22 million subscribers, while TWC, which was spun off of Time Warner years ago, has just over 11 million.

Of course, regulators may have some objections to the deal. Media watchdog groups immediately voiced protests, saying the deal will give Comcast too much power.

The Wall Street Journal quoted someone close to the Federal Communications Commission as saying the deal will face “a number of hurdles” for approval, though the paper noted that cable companies do not compete directly for customers as, say, cell phone companies do.

When Comcast purchased NBC, it faced a similarly long process.

The Justice Department may scrutinize the deal as well because of anti-trust concerns.

Tags: cable, comcast, comcast time warner cable, regulators, time warner cable, time warner cable comcast