Some Votes Against Media Merger Mania

Mergers are top of mind in the TV business today, but completing potential deals will not be easy. Analyst Rich Greenfield of BTIG Research doesn't think the big cable merger now on the table will pass muster with government regulators. Comcast withdrew its offer for Time Warner Cable because it couldn't overcome regulatory concerns about broadband concentration, but Charter Communications, which is looking to buy TWC and Bright House, thinks it has a better chance partly because it's smaller than Comcast.

"Given the FCC's public statements and thinking through how the Department of Justice will look at market concentration, we have a very hard time seeing how the government will allow Charter, Time Warner and Bright House to join together," says Greenfield. If somehow Charter convinces the government to give the deal a go ahead, Greenfield foresees conditions being put on the combined company. One is that the new bigger Charter must agree to accept network neutrality and reclassification as a Title II carrier as part of its deal. Regulators might also require the cable giants to overbuild one another to create competition for consumers. Greenfield thinks it unlikely that Charter would accept such a condition.