Charter announces acquisition of Time Warner Cable

Charter Communications announced early Tuesday that it will acquire Time Warner Cable — a little over a month after a proposed deal between Comcast and Time Warner was killed by regulators.

{mosads}As part of the deal, reportedly valued at $56.7 billion, Charter will be renamed “New Charter,” the company said in a statement.

Charter will also acquire a majority stake in Bright House Networks, a smaller cable operator, for $10.4 billion.

The deal will significantly expand Charter’s customer base to 23.9 million people.

The Charter deal comes as cable companies look to brace themselves against the declining use of cable TV and the rise of streaming video.

“With our larger reach, we will be able to accelerate the deployment of faster Internet speeds, state-of-the-art video experiences, and fully–featured voice products, at highly competitive prices,” said Charter CEO Tom Rutledge in a statement.

“In addition, we will drive greater competition through further deployment of new competitive facilities-based WiFi networks in public places, and the expansion of the facilities footprint of optical networks to serve the large, small and medium sized business services marketplace.”

The companies expect the deal to be final by the end of the year, Charter said, assuming that regulators sign off on the transaction.

Last month, Comcast announced it was dropping its own bid to buy Time Warner when it became clear regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice would challenge the deal.

But FCC Chair Tom Wheeler reportedly reached out to the heads of cable companies last week to assure them that the agency’s reaction to the Comcast deal should not be taken as a sign that it will kill all cable mergers.