"All three seven-year conditions will help consumers by benefitting [online video provider] competition," Wheeler says. "The cumulative impact of these conditions will be to provide additional protection for new forms of video programming services offered over the Internet."

Charter has been hunting Time Warner Cable since early 2014. Today's thumbs up also covers Charter's purchase of Bright House Networks, a deal valued at $10.4 billion. The remaining FCC commissioners still have to sign off on the deal, something that could happen as early as this week.

Update: A previous version of this story misstated the FCC's approval of the Charter-Time Warner Cable deal. FCC chairman Tom Wheeler supports the acquisition, but the FCC itself has yet to approve it. We've updated the article for clarity.