The Federal Communications Commission has given its blessing for Time Warner Cable to go ahead with its $3 billion purchase of Insight Communications, meaning that the deal is yet another step closer to completion.
When it closes later this year, TWC will become Kentucky's largest cable provider, and the company's footprint in Indiana and Ohio will be greatly expanded as well. Overall, Insight has roughly 750,000 customers in the those three states.
In its ruling, the FCC said, “The combined company’s broader service footprint, increased operating efficiencies, and greater scale and scope create a potentially stronger competitor” for phone business, which “outweighs the potential harm ... from eliminating Insight as a competitor in the limited area in which both companies compete.”
With only a very small portion of the two companies' service territories in Ohio actually overlapping, FCC approval was all but assured.
In the Tri-State, Insight operates cable systems in Boonville, Cynthiana, Evansville, Ft. Branch, Haubstadt, Huntingburg, Jasper, Mt. Vernon, Owensville, Poseyville and Princeton in Southwestern Indiana; and Clay, Corydon, Dawson Springs, Henderson, Nortonville, Providence and St. Charles in Western Kentucky.
Time Warner Cable, which entered the Tri-State through its purchase of the assets of the now-defunct Adelphia Communications in 2006, currently serves Shawneetown and Junction, Ill.; Chandler, Hatfield, Newburgh, Reo and Rockport, Ind.; and Beaver Dam, Calhoun, Clay, Dixon, Livermore, Madisonville, Morganfield, Owensboro, Uniontown, Waverly and Wheatcroft, Ky.
No definitive timetable has been publicly announced for completion of the sale, but if TWC's purchase of NewWave Communications' Kentucky and Tennessee systems (which was announced just two months prior to the Insight agreement and largely finalized from customers' perspective today) is any guide, we should know more very soon.
There are some details still to be taken care of before the deal can be concluded. Insight's franchise agreements in Louisville expired late last year, and that situation remains unresolved. As a condition of any new agreement, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer has sought assurances that the company's 900-employee call center will not be closed; however, Insight says it can make no such guarantee.
Stay tuned ...
MORE READING:
- Courier-Journal: "FCC approves Insight sale to Time Warner"
- WDRB News: "FCC: Time Warner can buy Insight"
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