FCC chairman reached out to Time Warner Cable, Charter CEOs: WSJ

(Reuters) - Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler reached out to the chief executives of Time Warner Cable Inc and Charter Communications Inc to convey that the agency is not against cable deals, the Wall Street Journal reported. Wheeler told the CEOs that any deal would be assessed on its own merits, the newspaper cited people familiar with the matter. The calls were in response to recent statements from cable executives "who have expressed uncertainty about the regulatory climate for future cable deals", the Journal said. Wheeler saw some of the statements as a "significant over-reading" of the FCC staff's stance on the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal, the newspaper said. Comcast Corp abandoned its $45 billion offer for Time Warner Cable last month after U.S. regulators raised concerns that the deal would give Comcast an unfair advantage in the cable TV and Internet-based services market. (Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru)