Comcast CFO Says Failure Of Time Warner Cable Merger Is “Blessing In Disguise”

Comcast spent a year and a half, and untold millions, pushing for regulators to approve its $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable. And then, when regulators said they would try to block the deal, the mega-merger evaporated. You might expect Comcast executives would still be stewing about their failed attempt to take over most of the cable and broadband service for both New York and Los Angeles, but at least one C-level suit at the company is trying to put it behind him.

“In some ways, it’s a shame that Time Warner Cable did not happen and in some ways it’s a blessing in disguise,” new Comcast chief financial officer Mike Cavanagh tells the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Of course, Cavanagh doesn’t have any real personal attachment to the failed TWC acquisition, as the former JPMorgan Chase exec only recently made the move to Kabletown.

Regardless, the company’s new CFO says Comcast can now take the billions it would have spent acquiring and integrating TWC and use it to improve the Comcast customer experience.

The nation’s largest cable and Internet company is also rumored to be looking into making a move in the wireless world after seeing its biggest pay-TV rival, DirecTV, get gobbled up by AT&T for $49 billion, only weeks after the collapse of the Comcast/TWC marriage.

American service providers have mainly focused on bundling TV, Internet and home phone service because they can be carried on the same cable line. Some, including Comcast, have previously considered getting into the wireless business, acquiring spectrum for possible future use. Then in 2012, Comcast and others sold off billions of dollars of unused or barely used wireless spectrum to Verizon. In exchange, they could market Verizon services to their cable and Internet customers.

But with consumers increasingly shifting their online use toward wireless, and with AT&T/DirecTV now able to offer wireless/pay-TV bundles, Comcast appears to be rethinking its stance on the issue.

“In Europe, the flavor of the month is quad-play” says Cavanagh, referring to bundles of TV/broadband/landline/wireless services. He says that Comcast has the “wherewithal to go down that road,” and that “It’s something we should pay attention to, and you can count on us putting some time into the issue.”