Cable Coordination Efforts Emerging as a Worry in Charter/TWC/BHN, BTIG's Greenfield Says
A consent decree to block any coordination of efforts between New Charter and Comcast is possible as regulators look at Charter Communications' planned buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, given the worries being expressed about such cable…
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coordination, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield wrote investors Friday. Both AT&T and Dish Network brought up such cable coordination issues in their comments filed last week in the FCC review of the transaction, while others such asPublic Knowledge and Free Press pointed to such coordination issues involving Chairman John Malone of Liberty Broadband, which would be the largest shareholder of New Charter, (see 1510140009">1510140009), Greenfield said. "At first blush, you could easily dismiss AT&T and DISH’s concerns as trying to limit the size of a threatening industry rival." But when considered in context of recent Malone comments that if not for regulators saying otherwise, he would pursue one technical platform for all cable operators, "the risk from coordination is blatantly obvious," Greenfield said. "The question becomes will regulators care and if they do, are there ways to protect consumers from these risks through consent decree behavioral conditions (especially, in the context of the failure of behavioral remedies in the Comcast NBC approval)?"