Comcast chief’s last-minute pleas to a former ally fell on deaf ears

On April 20, the chief executive of Comcast made a Hail Mary call to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler. Brian Roberts told the regulator that his intention to buy Time Warner Cable was for the good for the entire country because it would bring faster Internet speeds to millions. His cable and media company would of course become a behemoth, but Roberts promised to behave and to not use his company’s power to unfairly thwart competitors. The two men knew each other well.

Chairman Wheeler, 69, was the former head of the cable industry’s leading lobbying organization. Roberts, 55, had spent his entire career at Comcast, where he once climbed telephone poles and sold cable subscriptions door-to-door. Both had been major fundraisers for President Barack Obama’s campaigns. But whatever history the two men had was now irrelevant as they talked. Roberts’s plea had come too late. By the time of the phone call, Chairman Wheeler and his staff at the FCC had apparently already decided to block the $45 billion megadeal. On April 23, Comcast executives were summoned to a meeting in a nondescript conference room at the agency to hear the verdict: No amount of concessions would save the deal. Comcast and Time Warner would simply be too big and threatening to an array of competitors, particularly online video providers.