Business

Comcast-Time Warner Cable critics fired up

Comcast’s plan to own the biggest broadband pipe in the country is looking increasingly shaky.

Critics of the cable giant’s proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable have stepped up their attacks on the mega-deal in the last week — with an influential antitrust voice and an e-commerce giant adding fuel to the fire.

At the same time, the competitive landscape is rapidly changing — with HBO and CBS each announcing plans to initiate an over-the-top, or streaming, service.

“The air of inevitability [about the merger] might be over,” a Washington anti-trust expert working on the case said Wednesday.

Until recently, the expert believed the deal was headed for clear regulatory approval.

Among those recently emerged critics is Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, The Post has learned.

Amazon representatives met recently with Justice Department investigators, sources said.

“Amazon is a good whiner, and has plenty of influence,” the DC antitrust expert noted.

A spokesman for Amazon declined to comment on any meeting with Justice officials.

Until this week, Netflix, Dish Network and Discovery Communications have led the critics brigade.

Other signs that the Comcast-TWC alliance is coming under heavier attack are:

l The FCC on Wednesday stopped the clock on its review, citing the need to address programmers fears that highly sensitive contracts will become public if they submit them to the FCC and outside law firms for review as part of the merger process. “The new delay works against the proposed merger by giving opponents more time to make their case,” deal critic Tim Winter, head of Parents Television Council, told The Post.

l  Comcast got whacked in a Monday letter to the FCC signed by 37 law professors and economic experts, including Herbert Hovenkamp, the dean of antitrust law.

“The merger should be blocked in its entirety because it would substantially lessen competition in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act and it is not in the public interest,” Hovenkamp, of the University of Iowa College of Law, and the others wrote in the letter.

The experts say that DSL and mobile and satellite broadband competition isn’t strong enough to prevent anti-competitive behavior.

Any behavioral remedies are insufficient to prevent harm to competition and consumers, the professors wrote.

Comcast had no comment on the letter but said it is routine for the FCC to stop the clock.

“We are confident that the [FCC] will quickly resolve these issues while continuing its work so the review will be completed in early 2015.”

Despite the pressure over net neutrality, Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant believes the merger will get approved since it allows the FCC to enshrine in law pro-Internet conditions.

The FCC could also, in approving the deal, provide for the more powerful company to offer standalone broadband to consumers.