If all goes as planned, the acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Charter Communications will bring with it the usual cable industry merger side affect. Cable swaps.
Cable swaps occur whenever one company merges with another and there are pieces and parts that just don't fit. A perfect example is in my area of San Diego County where remnants of the old Daniels, then Adelphia Cable ended up with Time Warner, even though they are surrounded by Cox Communications. Cox, which has coverage from the Mexican border north finds parts of San Diego in the hands of TWC. Then Cox will pick up coverage in North County, but the City of Del Mar and parts of Solana Beach are on TWC while others have Cox. Cox then owns Orange County but TWC has lots of L.A. County. Then when you get up into Santa Barbara Cox resumes coverage.
This non contiguous coverage map increases costs, so what the MSO's do is set a price, figure out who has what where and voila they swap market areas.
Expect this to happen within nine months of the Charter deal closing as it has always happened and always will simply due to economic forces at play.
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