Time Warner Cable Is Said to Acquire Midwest Cable Operator

Time Warner Cable, the second biggest cable television company in the United States after Comcast, is near a deal to acquire Insight Communications, a large operator in the Midwest, for about $3 billion.

It would be Time Warner Cable’s biggest acquisition since 2006, when it and Comcast picked up the assets of Adelphia, a bankrupt cable television company. The acquisition highlights Time Warner Cable’s confidence in the cable subscription business at a time when cable companies are losing customers to telecommunications companies like Verizon, and when other customers are contemplating cutting the cord and consuming video online instead. Insight provides cable, broadband and phone services in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Some of its locations complement Time Warner Cable’s operations; the two serve different parts of Columbus, Ohio, for example. Time Warner Cable has about 12 million cable customers. The deal for Insight, the ninth largest cable operator in the country, will give Time Warner Cable an additional 680,000 cable customers.