Charter Communications to show Dodgers games to Los Angeles subscribers soon amid Time Warner Cable deal

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Charter Communications will begin showing Dodgers games to its Los Angeles subscribers within the next few weeks, the company confirmed following news of its deal to buy Time Warner Cable.

The $55.33 billion deal, which was announced early Tuesday morning, still needs federal, state and shareholder approval. If the deal is finalized, it will create the largest pay-television provider in Southern California. The new parent company is set to be called New Charter.

The agreement is a cash-and-stock deal that will merge Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and a third cable provider, Bright House.

Across the nation, New Charter would serve 23.9 million customers in 41 states.

This deal could be a game changer for Dodger fans.

For the past two years, Time Warner has carried all Dodgers games exclusively with its SportsNet LA channel. Other cable providers like DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-Verse and Cox Communications are not currently carrying this channel. This means that more than 70 percent of the Los Angeles market cannot watch most games.

Alex Dudley, senior vice president of communications for Charter, confirmed to Eyewitness News on Tuesday that the company will show Dodgers games to its Los Angeles subscribers within the next few weeks.

What remains unclear is how this will affect negotiations with those other cable providers.

This deal comes a month after Comcast, the country's largest cable provider and owner of NBCUniversal, walked away from a $45.2 billion bid for Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 cable company, after intense pressure from regulators.

Time Warner Cable had chosen the Comcast deal and rejected a $38 billion hostile offer from Charter in early 2014.

Whether government regulators will approve the Charter deal after quashing Comcast's bid for Time Warner Cable remains to be seen.

The Comcast deal would have given it more than half of the country's high-speed Internet subscribers, which the government feared would give it the power to undermine online video competitors.

Charter will have less than 30 percent of those fast-broadband customers, the company said Tuesday.

The deal comes with a $2 billion break-up fee if it doesn't go through. If regulators don't approve it, Charter would pay Time Warner Cable; if Time Warner Cable kills the deal and goes with another buyer, it'll pay.

Charter Communications Inc., based in Stamford, Connecticut, will provide $100 in cash and shares of a new public parent company equal to 0.5409 shares of Charter for each outstanding Time Warner Cable Inc. share. The transaction values each Time Warner Cable share at about $195.71.

The companies on Tuesday valued New York-based Time Warner Cable at a total of $78.7 billion, including debt.

The deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.