Time Warner Cable Split From Parent Gets OK in Draft FCC Order
Time Warner Cable is slated to get approval from the FCC to separate from its parent company (CD Feb 9 p3), said agency officials. The office of Acting Chairman Michael Copps on Monday sent to the other FCC members a draft Media Bureau order approving the deal, said agency officials. The bureau is poised to approve the transaction on delegated authority, without a vote by commissioners, they said. The order would place no new conditions on either TWC or Time Warner Inc., which is separating from the cable operator in a multibillion dollar deal.
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FCC members are getting a chance to review the order to make their concerns known to Copps or ask questions about the order before it’s released, as sometimes occurs with high- profile actions being done on delegated authority, commission officials said. It’s unlikely the other FCC members will have concerns, but they haven’t finished reviewing the document, they said. No public interest groups opposed the deal, and only a few companies or industry groups expressed concerns to the FCC, said an industry lawyer. An FCC spokesman declined to comment right away.
Under the draft order, some programming conditions TWC faces from another deal will remain even after the company separates from its parent, said agency officials. One such condition deals with arbitration of disputes between pay-TV companies and regional sports networks owned by TWC, they said. Spokesmen for Time Warner and Time Warner Cable declined to comment.
Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt wants the FCC to “take immediate action” to approve the company’s separation from Time Warner Inc., said an ex parte. He made the case in Thursday meetings with Copps and Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. Time Warner won’t be subject to FCC program access rules, barring it from withholding channels it owns from pay-TV companies, after its separation from TWC because it won’t own cable systems, said an industry lawyer.