Charter is about to merge with Cox.

[TheRolyPoly 2514]

It looks like Cox Cable could go bye bye as Bloomberg News is breaking a story this morning about a potential deal to merge with Charter a.k.a. Spectrum.

 

Wow.

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/charter-advanced-talks-combine-with-cox-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-05-16/

[tyrannical bastard 3997]

3 hours ago, TheRolyPoly said:

It looks like Cox Cable could go bye bye as Bloomberg News is breaking a story this morning about a potential deal to merge with Charter a.k.a. Spectrum.

 

Wow.

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/charter-advanced-talks-combine-with-cox-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-05-16/

Oof.  Those poor Cox customers.  I've heard nothing but awful things about Spectrum. 

 

Maybe Xfinity can put Mediacom out of its misery too.  They're so bad they won't even hook up my street, leaving AT&T fiber as my only option.

[TheRolyPoly 2514]

No more advanced talks.

 

It's official: Charter has agreed to buy Cox for $34.5 billion.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/charter-agrees-to-combine-with-cox-in-34-5-billion-cable-deal-maqpb06a

[T.L. Hughes 892]

1 hour ago, TheRolyPoly said:

No more advanced talks.

 

It's official: Charter has agreed to buy Cox for $34.5 billion.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/charter-agrees-to-combine-with-cox-in-34-5-billion-cable-deal-maqpb06a

While the Spectrum brand will remain, the Charter name won’t (per a CNBC report):

Quote

The transaction will see the combined company change its name to Cox Communications within a year after the deal closes. Charter’s Spectrum, the brand on its cable, broadband, mobile and other services, will become the consumer-facing brand across all customers.

Cox Enterprises will also own 23% of the shares in the new Cox Communications, which will maintain Charter’s existing Stamford headquarters and old Cox’s existing offices in Atlanta post-closing. 

Edited Friday at 01:40 PM by T.L. Hughes

[nathannah 2475]

Really surprised they are keeping the Cox name, but with Spectrum being front-facing for the last decade, it makes sense to abandon Charter (which always sounded similar to a drug rehab center that existed until 2000).

Besides price though, Spectrum is rock solid for me and I rarely lose service, so I must be in a good part of their service area (originally Marcus). It's just sad to see Cox in so many aspects wind down, though.

[SDHIll1980 104]

I'd put this in the category of "Things You Didn't See Coming".  I'm not exact shocked that this happened, especially because of all of these media conglomerates merging or acquiring each other quite frequently.

 

Out here in the West, a Cox-Spectrum merger give them practically total control of service in all of Southern California (from Bakersfield on south to the Mexican border), the Las Vegas region, and most of Arizona (particularly the Phoenix and Tucson DMAs).  I'm in a Spectrum service area (Los Angeles), but there are also of pockets of the DMA that have Cox as their main MVPD, such as the beach cities in southwestern L.A. County, the Harbor area in the city of Los Angeles (San Pedro, Wilmington), and the southern half of Orange County.

[NYAZSporty 139]

3 hours ago, SDHIll1980 said:

I'd put this in the category of "Things You Didn't See Coming".  I'm not exact shocked that this happened, especially because of all of these media conglomerates merging or acquiring each other quite frequently.

 

Out here in the West, a Cox-Spectrum merger give them practically total control of service in all of Southern California (from Bakersfield on south to the Mexican border), the Las Vegas region, and most of Arizona (particularly the Phoenix and Tucson DMAs).  I'm in a Spectrum service area (Los Angeles), but there are also of pockets of the DMA that have Cox as their main MVPD, such as the beach cities in southwestern L.A. County, the Harbor area in the city of Los Angeles (San Pedro, Wilmington), and the southern half of Orange County.

Noticed Cox customers in SoCal, North of San Diego County, don't get the Dodgers RSN SportsNet LA, so Dodgers fans unable to switch last few yrs. to DIRECTV or Spectrum, will soon able to get SNLA.

[mre29 1544]

13 hours ago, nathannah said:

Besides price though, Spectrum is rock solid for me and I rarely lose service, so I must be in a good part of their service area (originally Marcus). It's just sad to see Cox in so many aspects wind down, though.

 

Spectrum is pretty solid for me in CT, as well.

 

[MeAndTheGraphics 5]

17 hours ago, TheRolyPoly said:

No more advanced talks.

 

It's official: Charter has agreed to buy Cox for $34.5 billion.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/charter-agrees-to-combine-with-cox-in-34-5-billion-cable-deal-maqpb06a

I have a question, two actually.

 

Will the merger affect either Spectrum News or Cox Media Group in any way? Despite CMG being owned by Apollo, doesn't Cox Enterprises still own a small part of it?

Edited Saturday at 06:18 AM by MeAndTheGraphics

[TheRolyPoly 2514]

16 minutes ago, MeAndTheGraphics said:

I have a question, two actually.

 

Will the merger affect either Spectrum News or Cox Media Group in any way? Despite CMG being owned by Apollo, doesn't Cox Enterprises still own a small part of it?

 

Those are very good questions.

 

I think Spectrum News will continue and will more likely expand to cover more areas and with more channels (Gainesville for example possibly receiving Spectrum News 13 from Orlando; Ocala already has it since Spectrum does serve there but no Cox but Cox serves Gainesville but no Spectrum there).

 

CMG is 29% owned by Cox Enterprises. Maybe we'll see some changes regarding CMG but it's too soon to say on that for now.

 

It'll be interesting and weird at first to say Spectrum from Cox instead of from Charter but we'll get used to it (I wish I still lived in Gainesville and had Cox to see the full effect).

[Megatron81 273]

I have had Charter Spectrum since 2000 way better than the cable company formally known as Suckyvision Oh, I mean Cablevision in Kazoo County I was without Wood TV for a full year had to watch it on rabbit ears Jan 97 to Jan 98 didn't get Wood TV back until 2 days before SB32. I didn't see this one coming Charter & COX merger and yeah, I see Spectrum adding Spectrum News to the new footprint, as Spectrum News just launched in Michigan. As I saw it in the lineup on Fri when the power flickered once again after the nasty storms on Thur guessing that the power company was working on something in my opinion. I have watched it for a few minutes more for the weather the top stories was those nasty storms on Thur and St. Louis getting those nasty storms on Fri. I have had no problems with Spectrum either.     

[NowBergen 686]

On 5/19/2025 at 2:31 PM, Megatron81 said:

I have had Charter Spectrum since 2000 way better than the cable company formally known as Suckyvision Oh, I mean Cablevision in Kazoo County I was without Wood TV for a full year had to watch it on rabbit ears Jan 97 to Jan 98 didn't get Wood TV back until 2 days before SB32. I didn't see this one coming Charter & COX merger and yeah, I see Spectrum adding Spectrum News to the new footprint, as Spectrum News just launched in Michigan. As I saw it in the lineup on Fri when the power flickered once again after the nasty storms on Thur guessing that the power company was working on something in my opinion. I have watched it for a few minutes more for the weather the top stories was those nasty storms on Thur and St. Louis getting those nasty storms on Fri. I have had no problems with Spectrum either.     

I had the opposite situation.

 

I moved from Cablevision's NY systems, which were quite advanced to St. Louis and had to settle for Charter.  Besides poor installation that had to be redone, and outright lying, there was very little HD, slow internet and worse.  It was a definite step way down.  After they ddi some work in the area, my internet kept going out every 45 minutes or so (this was even before streaming).  This was 2005 and 2006.  Ironically the then VP HR for Charter, lived in my complex, though that is a role that is extremely temporary with that company.  After lots of investigation, digging and more, they were incapable of finding the issue.  I finally threw them out for DirecTV and ATT internet (slow but at least reliable).  Horrendous experience and biases me against Charter today.  Note I also moved away several years later back to Cablevision territory, which has gone down hill since Altice purchased it.  What it does mean there is no more speculation that Charter will purchase Altice at this point.  Their only partner seems to be Comcast, which in NJ would make a lot of sense since Charter's area is very limited right along the river.