A Cable Merger Too Far

[Commentary] There are good reasons the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission should block Comcast’s $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable.

The merger will concentrate too much market power in the hands of one company, creating a telecommunications colossus the likes of which the country has not seen since 1984 when the government forced the breakup of the original AT&T telephone monopoly. The Justice Department and the FCC could try to address some of the problems with the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal by imposing conditions, like requiring the company not to give favored treatment to established content providers like Netflix and Google at the expense of smaller companies. Comcast agreed to similar terms in exchange for government approval of its 2011 acquisition of NBC Universal.

Even so, this merger would fundamentally change the structure of this important industry and give one company too much control over what information, shows, movies and sports Americans can access on TVs and the Internet. Federal regulators should challenge this deal.