Charter, Cox Strike $34.5 Billion Merger Deal to Create Cable Behemoth (2025)

Two of the nation’s biggest cable companies, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, said they would merge in a deal valued at $34.5 billion at a time when traditional cable companies face an exodus of subscribers who are more interested in streaming video rather than the cable TV bundle they have relied on for years.

Under terms of the deal, Charter will acquire Cox Communications’ commercial fiber and managed IT and cloud businesses, and Cox Enterprises will contribute Cox Communications’ residential cable business to Charter Holdings, an existing subsidiary partnership of Charter. Within a year after the closing, the combined company will change its name to Cox Communications. Charter’s Spectrum will become the consumer-facing brand within the communities Cox serves. The combined company will remain headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, and will maintain a significant presence on Cox’s Atlanta campus following the closing, the companies said.

Charter currently expects approximately $500 million of annualized “cost synergies” achieved within three years of close, “stemming from typical procurement and overhead savings.”

“We’re honored that the Cox family has entrusted us with its impressive legacy and are excited by the opportunity to benefit from the terrific operating history and community leadership of Cox,” Charter president and CEO Chris Winfrey said in a statement. “This combination will augment our ability to innovate and provide high-quality, competitively priced products, delivered with outstanding customer service, to millions of homes and businesses. We will continue to deliver high-value products that save American families money, and we’ll onshore jobs from overseas to create new, good-paying careers for U.S. employees that come with great benefits, career training and advancement, and retirement and ownership opportunities.”

Winfrey will become president and CEO of the new combined company while Alex Taylor, chairman and CEO of Cox, will serve as chairman. The Newhouse family will continue as investors in the combined entity but Liberty Broadband, a vehicle for longtime media investor John Malone, will cease to be a direct shareholder in the company, as it has been in Charter.

The companies have chosen to join in an era when their relationships with TV networks are growing more fraught. Just this past week, three major TV outlets — Disney’s ESPN, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery’s CNN — unveiled plans to launch stand-alone streaming properties that will have their media conglomerate partners dealing with video customers in direct fashion, without a third-party distributor. Fox, Warner and Disney have all stressed traditional cable customers will be able to reap some of the benefits of the new services without having to leave their current arrangements, but most analysts see that concept as short-term positioning aimed at assuaging the cable companies.

Charter has been an aggressive negotiator in recent years when it comes to signing new distribution deals with media companies. While streaming is seen as the way of the future, the cable distribution relationships continue to generate billion in revenue for Disney, Paramount Global and others.

In 2023, Charter’s Winfrey pressed Disney over the fact that the media giant and its contemporaries were degrading cable, forcing customers to pay for channels that have less premium content, or for networks they may not regularly use, then spurring them to pay in a second arrangement for a streaming alternative. As a result, Charter was able to drop several Disney cable networks while gaining the ability to distribute some Disney streaming services.