Putting an End to a Bad Comcast Merger

[Commentary] Comcast’s decision to walk away from its $45 billion deal to acquire Time Warner Cable is good news for consumers. A merger of the nation’s two largest cable companies would have created a telecom giant with tremendous power as a gatekeeper to entertainment and the Internet. Comcast said it was moving on, but some of its supporters are sure to blame over-aggressive regulators just as they criticized the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to approve strong network neutrality rules in February. The truth is that the company has a thriving and growing broadband business that has far more customers than competing services offered by phone companies like Verizon and AT&T.

As for Time Warner Cable, the country’s second-biggest cable company, it is well positioned in the markets where it operates. And executives at Charter, the nation’s third-largest cable company, have said that they would be interested in buying Time Warner Cable. Telecommunications is a capital-intensive business, and some consolidation can make sense, if it provides consumers more choices and lower prices by allowing smaller companies to acquire the scale and resources needed to compete with larger corporations. The Comcast deal, however, would have dangerously concentrated market power in a way that could have reduced innovation in a fast-changing industry.