FCC Clears TWC to Take Over Insight

By John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 2/6/2012 12:01:00 AM

Washington — The Federal Communications Commission has approved Time Warner Cable’s purchase of Insight Communications. TWC last August agreed to buy Insight for $3 billion in cash.

TWC will acquire control of Insight by merging Insight into Derby Merger Sub Inc., a whollyowned subsidiary of TWC, with Insight as the surviving entity, the FCC said. Insight will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of TWC.

“We have analyzed the potential harms and benefits of the proposed transaction,” the FCC said. “On balance, we find that the potential public interest benefits, taken as a whole, outweigh the potential public-interest harms.”

That approval also meant granting a waiver of the commission’s prohibition on cable operators from buying local phone companies that provide service in their cable franchise areas.

The FCC said that there was limited overlap of those services and pointed out that nobody had opposed the transaction. “We conclude that, overall, approval of the applications will serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity, and hereby grant the applications,” the heads of FCC’s the wireless and wireline competition bureas said in granting the purchase.

The deal boosts TWC’s Midwestern presence, adding more than 750,000 subs in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Insight is owned by The Carlyle Group, Crestview Partners, MidOcean Partners, members of Insight management and others. Carlyle and Insight management took the company private in December 2005, and Crestview and Mid Ocean purchased a signifi cant stake in the company in April 2010.

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Mike Reynolds contributed to this report.