Charter Communications this morning officially completed its purchase of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, a "mammoth merger that sweeps together 25 million customers in 41 states and reorders the landscape for high-speed Internet and pay-TV service," according to Meg James of the L.A. TIMES. Charter "intends to phase out" the TWC and Bright House names, and instead "market its products and services under the Spectrum brand." Dodgers fans will want to know if Charter "will be able to persuade other pay-TV providers in the area -- including AT&T, which owns DirecTV, Frontier Communications and Cox Communications -- to carry the SportsNet LA channel." TWC "failed in its efforts to win wider carriage" for the channel, as only Charter, and the former TWC, presently offer it. Charter has "not divulged its strategy for the Dodgers channel," and that will likely come after Charter execs have "had time to digest the deal, learn more about the systems it inherited in Los Angeles and gauge demand for the expensive sports channel" (L.A. TIMES, 5/18).
TIME FOR ACTION: In L.A., Clay Fowler noted Time Warner and DirecTV rank No. 41 on the L.A. Daily News' Top 50 Most Powerful in Southern California Sports rankings. He wrote of the SportsNet LA dispute, "Will anyone ever get around to focusing on this issue before the Dodgers finish their third year unavailable to 65 percent of L.A.?" (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 5/17).
