The story
Founded by WarnerMedia in 1989.1
Background
By 1971, more than five million American homes had cable television from 2700 cable systems. As cable's popularity grew, Time-Life sold its five television stations and began investing in cable systems such as Sterling Manhattan. Time Warner Cable traces back to two cable entities owned by Time and Warner Communications respectively in the 1970s; American Television and Communications, which was established in 1968, and would be acquired by Time in 1977; and Warner Cable, established in 1973.
Warner Cable would eventually diversify into channels with the formation of Warner Cable Communications in 1977, creating channels for its cable systems such as Pinwheel and Star Channel, and original series such as Sight on Sound; these would eventually be officially launched as Nickelodeon and The Movie Channel in 1979, and MTV in 1981 respectively. In 1979, American Express was brought in to form a joint-venture cable network and cable television firm called Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, and eventually Warner Cable was renamed to Warner-Amex Cable. WAC would eventually create the QUBE interactive service until it was shut down in 1984.
On June 25, 1984, it was announced that the channels would be spun off into a public-traded corporation known as MTV Networks Inc.; which was eventually purchased by Viacom International a year after.
In December 1986, American Express sold its half ownership of Warner-Amex Cable back to Warner Communications; reverting the name to Warner Cable.
Merged company
In the late 1980s, Warner Communications, which was in financial trouble at the time, planned to merge with Time Inc; which would lead to ATC becoming a sibling to Warner Cable. After a delay in the deal, Warner Communications officially merged with Time Inc. to create Time Warner in 1990; ATC & Warner Cable would eventually become part of a new division known as the Time Warner Cable Group. This was in large part because 18% of ATC was still owned by outside shareholders.
Time Warner Entertainment bought out the remainder of ATC in 1992, after which both cable divisions were merged and place in Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P. (TWEC L.P.), a new limited partnership with Toshiba and C Itoh & Company, which also included Warner Bros., and Home Box Office, Inc.
In 1993, telephone company US West purchased a 25% in TWEC L.P., including Time Warner Cable; this was in part to finance a joint venture, eventually named TW Telecom, intended to build up a fiber-optic communication infrastructure, as well as provide additional cash for Time Warner to upgrade their cable systems. Another cited benefit was that TWC could market telephone service provided by US West alongside their cable television services
In 1995, the company launched the Southern Tier On-Line Community in Elmira, New York, a cable modem service later known as Road Runner High Speed Online. That year, talks began that would later result in Warner's acquisition of Paragon Cable. Glenn Britt (1949–2014) was the CEO from 2001 until December 2013.
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Time Warner retained Time Warner Cable as a subsidiary until May 26, 2010, when it was spun off as an independent company. Prior to the spin-out, Time Warner had held an 84% stake in Time Warner Cable. Shareholders other than TW received 0.083670 shares for each share already owned. This move made Time Warner Cable the largest cable operator in the United States owned solely by a single class of shareholders (without supervoting stock).
Time Warner Cable launched DVR service in the Houston area in 2004. (TWC's Houston-area cable systems are now owned by Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal.) When first launched, it used Scientific-Atlanta set-top boxes with DVR.
In June 2009, Time Warner Cable unveiled a concept known as "TV Everywhere"—a means of allowing multi-platform access to live and on-demand content from television channels that is tied to a user's television subscription.
Sale to Charter Communications and company closure
It was first reported in October 2013 that Time Warner Cable was exploring a sale of the company, possibly to Charter Communications. However, on November 22, 2013, reports surfaced that Comcast expressed interest in acquiring Time Warner Cable. Both companies were said to be placing bids for the company. Charter reiterated its interest in purchasing Time Warner Cable and increased its bid on January 14, 2014. On February 12, 2014, it was reported that Comcast had reached a deal to acquire TWC in an overall deal valued at $45.2 billion, pending regulatory approval.
The proposed merger was met with prominent opposition from various groups, showing concerns that the sheer size of the combined company would reduce competition and would give Comcast an unprecedented level of control over the
United States' internet and television industries, increased leverage in the distribution of NBCUniversal content, hamper over-the-top services, and lead to higher prices for its services. In April 2015, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against the companies in a bid to halt the merger, primarily because the merged company would have controlled 57 percent of the nation's broadband capacity. On April 24, 2015, Comcast officially announced that it had called off the merger.
On May 25, 2015, Bloomberg News reported that Charter was "near" a deal to acquire TWC for $195 a share. Charter had been involved in the Comcast/TWC merger, as the companies planned to divest around 4 million subscribers to Charter in order to reduce the combined company's market share to an acceptable level. The next day, Charter officially announced its intent to acquire Time Warner Cable in a deal valued at $78.7 billion, and confirmed that it would also continue with its proposed, $10.1 billion acquisition of Bright House Networks. The deal was subject to regulatory approval, although due to the relatively smaller size of the companies and their media holdings, the deal was expected to face less resistance than the Comcast/TWC merger.
The acquisition was completed on May 18, 2016. In 2017, Charter stopped using the TWC and BHN branding and fully integrated the two services' subscribers into the Spectrum brand, which was originally debuted in 2014 to market Charter's services.
From Wikipedia’s article on Time Warner Cable, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4