ON THE eve of Valentine’s Day last year Comcast announced its intention to enter a surprise union with Time Warner Cable (TWC). Together the two firms were to form the largest cable company in America. But not everyone loves a power couple. This newspaper was early to point out that the $45 billion deal would give Comcast too much market dominance, particularly when it comes to internet delivery. According to Moffett Nathanson, a research firm, the combined firm would have controlled around 30% of the national pay-television market and 40% of high-speed broadband—even after it had voluntarily shed around a quarter of TWC’s subscribers.

Now Comcast is ending its relationship with TWC, once and for all. In recent days the deal had started to look wobbly; the Federal Communications Commission was reportedly pushing for the deal to be put before an administrative judge, which would have delayed and probably killed the merger. Plenty of people had expressed discomfort with the creation of a cable colossus, though few thought that regulators would have large enough teeth to do anything about it.

Comcast is already a titan. In 2011 it bought a stake in NBCUniversal, a media conglomerate that owns a Hollywood studio, a broadcast network, cable channels and other assets. And its share grew: Comcast now owns all of NBCUniversal. Consumer groups fretted that if Comcast were to grow any bigger it would eventually strangle the competition. Its victims might include projects by Netflix and AppleTV, which stand to disrupt the television business and offer lower prices for consumers.

As The Economist reported last September, there were rumours that Comcast was responsible for scuttling the sale of Hulu, an online video firm of which it was a part-owner. The theory is that because Comcast did not want to see Hulu go to AT&T, a rival, which had put in a joint bid with the Chernin Group that would have been the highest. Hulu was subsequently taken off the market. Comcast has denied that it intervened in any way, but some people close to the inner workings of the deal insist that it did. If so, then Comcast’s behaviour would have violated the conditions of its purchase of NBCUniversal, in which it promised to remain a passive owner so as to avoid stifling a smaller firm that might otherwise grow into a competitor. In reading the millions of documents submitted, and hearing countless hours of commentary from the bosses of media companies, regulators seem to have found reason to doubt whether new conditions attached to the TWC deal would be enough to protect rival firms and consumers.

Comcast is likely to stay single for a while. It would prefer not to risk further regulatory scrutiny and will probably not make a bid for another cable company. The great unknown is what will happen to the rest of the singletons looking to pair up in the pay-television industry’s trend towards consolidation. AT&T and DirecTV are awaiting approval for a $49 billion merger of their own. Last month Charter announced plans to buy Bright House Communications, a rival cable company, for $10.4 billion. Now that TWC is again available, Charter, which had bid for TWC before Comcast swooped in, may drop Bright House to pursue its old flame. All is fair in love and cable.