Technology FCC staff leaning against Comcast deal The development marks another sign that the merger faces serious regulatory hurdles in Washington.

Federal Communications Commission staff want the agency to block Comcast’s $45 billion bid for Time Warner Cable, in another sign of trouble for the deal in Washington, according to multiple sources with knowledge of an internal FCC briefing Wednesday.

If the FCC chooses to throw up a roadblock, it would send the issue to an administrative law judge for a hearing, a step that could drag out the review for months or even years and is widely seen as tantamount to killing the deal. Such a move would need approval from the five-member commission.


The merger is also facing skepticism at the Department of Justice. A report from Bloomberg News last week said staff attorneys in the DOJ’s antitrust division are poised to recommend against the deal due to concerns it would stifle competition in the cable and broadband industries.

Attorneys for Comcast met with Justice Department and FCC officials on Wednesday. Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, which has a related deal with Comcast, also attended the DOJ session.

“It did not go well,” one source said about the meeting at Justice. “They want to block the deal.”

Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice declined to discuss details of the meetings.

“As with all of our DOJ discussions in the past and going forward, we do not believe it is appropriate to share the content of those meetings publicly, and we, therefore, have no comment,” she said.

The Justice Department and the FCC declined to comment.

The deal, announced in February 2014, would combine the nation’s two largest cable companies, giving Comcast access to subscribers in key markets like New York and Los Angeles and control over a bigger chunk of the high-speed Internet market.

Comcast — which is well connected in D.C. and whose CEO Brian Roberts has played golf with President Barack Obama — deployed its extensive lobbying operation in Washington to sell the deal, flooding the D.C. market with pro-merger ads that say “together is better.” The company says acquiring Time Warner Cable will allow it to invest in better technology and services for customers.

The deal has sparked strong opposition in D.C., with opponents like Netflix, satellite TV provider DISH, and public interest groups warning the merger would create a behemoth with too much control, particularly over high-speed broadband, which has become increasingly important as more video and content is delivered online. Opponents including DISH and advocacy group Public Knowledge formed a coalition to intensify their efforts to crush the deal’s chances in Washington.

It was not immediately clear whether the federal agencies and Comcast discussed possible company concessions to ease regulators’ concerns. DOJ is examining antitrust issues around the merger, and the FCC is looking at whether it’s in the public interest.

Comcast has previously offered to extend some of the conditions imposed by the government on its 2011 purchase of NBCUniversal to the Time Warner Cable systems it acquires. The conditions, which are due to expire in 2018, included the creation of a discounted broadband service for low-income people and a pledge to follow the FCC’s older set of net neutrality rules.

Critics say the cable giant has a bad track record of meeting those promises, and regulators are looking at that history. Comcast insists it has met the NBCU conditions. David Cohen, a company executive vice president who is leading the charge for regulatory approval in Washington, wrote in a blog post Wednesday that critics have “recycled old claims using inaccurate information” about Comcast’s low-income broadband program, known as Internet Essentials.

As part of its pitch to regulators, Comcast has also publicly offered to shed some subscribers once the merger is complete, turning over 1.4 million Time Warner Cable customers to Charter and spinning off another 2.5 million into a public company that Charter would manage.

If the merger falls through, it would unwind a series of intertwined deals, including the spinoff of customers to Charter and Charter’s $10 billion acquisition of Bright House Networks.