NEW YORK (AP) - Charter buying Bright House for $10.4 billion is the latest big deal in the pay-TV industry.
Companies want to merge as costs for channels like ESPN have shot up, while their video subscribers have dipped and online video providers like Netflix become more popular. Combining gives them more negotiating power against programmers such as The Walt Disney Co.
Last year, Comcast said it was buying Time Warner Cable for $45 billion, and AT&T is purchasing DirecTV for $48.5 billion. Both are under long-running regulatory reviews.
But the Comcast-Time Warner deal has raised concerns from competitors and consumer and Internet advocates, who say too much of the country's Internet access would be under one company's control. They also say it could hurt growing online video providers like Netflix, who need its pipes to get to consumers, and lead to higher prices.
Comcast says it works cooperatively with online video companies like Netflix and that content providers, not distributors like itself, currently have bargaining advantages.
Charter buying Bright House, which hinges on regulators approving Comcast purchasing Time Warner Cable, is "kind of small in the scheme of things," says John Bergmayer, a senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group that advocates for Internet access. "Trends in consolidation are always worrying but this deal by itself is not as bad as some other deals out there."
Public Knowledge is against Comcast buying Time Warner Cable. Most analysts expect the deal will go through, but some have become less optimistic.
Charter and Bright House said Tuesday that the deal would create the second-largest U.S. cable operator. But they are not in any of the same markets, so their subscribers would