Discovery CEO David Zaslav, talking about the proposed $69 billion combo of cable ops/ISPs Comcast and Time Warner Cable, said consolidation raises some "real issues," according to a Discovery exec.
That came at the Sanford Bernstein Annual Strategic Decisions Conference in New York.
Zaslav said the company was still studying the deal, and suggested it would take longer to close than everybody initially thought, perhaps first or second quarter of 2015. He said that would give Discovery time to kick the tires on the deal and determine where it stood.
He pointed out that the FCC was not taking comments yet. Actually, there is an open docket that has been filling with comments from the public. But the official docket is awaiting Comcast's filing of its public interest statement and official request to spin-off/swap systems with Charter as part of the deal. Comcast has promised to keep its sub total under 30% of the country via that associated deal, but only if the government approves the TWC meld.
