The FCC on Friday approved Charter Communications’ $34.5 billion acquisition of Cox Enterprises residential cable, commercial fiber, and managed IT and cloud businesses after the two companies agreed to upgrade their networks, increase domestic employment and drop their DEI policies.

The acquisition creates the nation’s largest cable TV and broadband provider with approximately 38 million subscribers, surpassing Comcast. The merger, announced in May 2025, combines Cox Communications, a division of Cox Enterprises—the largest privately held broadband company in the U.S.—with about 6.5 million total residential and commercial with Charter’s reported 31.2 million broadband customers.

The combined company will be renamed as Cox Communications within a year of the deal's close, and Charter's Spectrum will be the consumer brand.

In order for the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau to approve the deal, the two companies agreed to invest billions of dollars to upgrade its network and deliver high-speed service to homes and businesses nationwide, onshore all of the job functions currently handled off-shore by Cox within 18 months of approval and end what the FCC calls “DEI discrimination.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr hailed the approval.

“This deal means that jobs are coming back to America that had been shipped overseas,” he said. “It means that modern, high-speed networks will get built out in more communities across rural America. And it means that customers will get access to lower priced plans. On top of this, the deal enshrines protections against DEI discrimination.”

Critics noted that the merger—which is expected to be completed by summer, will result in a broadband monopoly.

“The FCC approved the largest cable merger in nearly a decade and did not require Charter to do anything it wasn’t already planning to do,” John Bergmayer, legal director at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, said in a statement. “Consumers, as always, will bear the costs of reduced competition.”

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez was more succinct:

ATLANTA—Cox Enterprises has announced the acquisition of the news outlet Axios Media Inc. and is planning to invest in expanding Axios into more cities and covering more national topics and more premium niches for professionals. 

Terms of the deal were not released but reports have valued the transaction at $525 million. 

This acquisition follows a previous investment in Axios by Cox Enterprises in the fall of 2021 and is part of Cox's ongoing goal to grow and diversify the company.

"With so much happening in the world, Axios plays a critical role in delivering balanced, trusted news that people need," said Cox Enterprises chairman and CEO Alex Taylor, who will join the Axios board. "Our company started in the media business, and we have always had a passion for journalism. Bringing a forward-thinking organization like Axios into Cox Enterprises is exciting for us on many levels, and we look forward to helping them continue to scale and grow."

Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz will continue to hold substantial stakes in the company and will lead editorial and day-to-day business decisions.

"We have found our kindred spirit for creating a great, trusted, consequential media company that can outlast us all," said Axios CEO Jim VandeHei. "Our shared ambitions should be clear: to spread clinical, nonpartisan, trusted journalism to as many cities and as many topics as fast as possible."

Axios launched in January 2017 based on the shared belief that sharper, more focused, more efficient coverage was needed on the topics shaping the fast-changing world. The company is known for its Smart Brevity communication formula. It's built by journalists to prioritize essential news, explain its impact on readers and deliver both in a concise and visual format.

The Axios communications software business, Axios HQ, will become an independent company majority-owned by the founders and will include Cox as sole minority investor. Jim VandeHei will be chairman of the board of Axios HQ and Roy Schwartz will be its CEO. 

"We are excited about entering into this new chapter with Cox and the opportunities we can explore with Axios HQ as a separate business," said Roy Schwartz, president of Axios. "For both companies, our mission is to help as many people and companies get smarter, faster on what matters."

Cox Enterprises' current media companies — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dayton Daily News and other Ohio newspapers — are not impacted by the deal and each will continue to operate independently.

Cox Enterprises, which is a private company with about $20 billion in annual revenue, also owns Cox Communications, a major cable and broadband company. 

WASHINGTON—The FCC has given its approval for Terrier Media, a newly formed company owned by Apollo Global Management, to acquire TV and radio stations from both Cox Enterprises and Northwest (NBI Holdings) with the understanding that the deal will be modified to adhere to new newspaper-broadcast ownership rules that came about following recent court proceedings.

The deal would see Terrier Media acquire all of the TV stations licensed to Northwest license subsidiaries for $384 million, as well as broadcast TV and radio stations owned by Cox for $3.1 billion.

When the U.S. Court of Appeals Third Circuit passed down its ruling in the Prometheus IV case dealing with vacated FCC broadcast ownership deregulation efforts, issues arose with the deal. According to the FCC, the parties amended the structure of the transactions to address any concerns that stemmed from the ruling.

However, the changes to the deal are not in place when it would now become official on Nov. 27, but the FCC has issued a 30-day window to allow all parties to become compliant.

“We recognize that the Television applicants may be in violation of certain broadcast multiple and cross-ownership rules following consummation as a result of the Prometheus IV decision,” the FCC’s Media Bureau wrote in its official decision. “However, we believe the unique circumstances of this case, specifically the Television Applicants’ specific commitments in the October 2019 Amendment and the timing of the Third Circuit’s decision, justify a brief 30-day period from consummation to come into compliance with these revised rules.”

Among the ways that the deal is expected to meet the new rules is for Northwest to surrender a license for one of its stations in Syracuse and Yuma not acquired by Terrier Media while also transferring all of the programming to the acquired station in each market. For Cox, Terrier says that it will change the publication frequency of three Cox newspapers in Ohio to three times a week.

The ownership rules weren’t the only objections to Apollo/Terrier’s acquisition of these stations. Multiple organizations, including Common Cause, filed comments saying how the acquisition would be against the public interest and hurt local TV coverage. However, citing its previous approval of the Nexstar-Tribune acquisition, the Media Bureau stated that it believes this acquisition would be in the public interest.

Read the FCC Media Bureau’s full order for more information.

ATLANTA—Apollo Global Management and Cox Enterprises have struck a deal that will see Apollo acquire a major interest in Cox Media Group’s broadcast television stations across the country. Cox Enterprises, which will retain a minority stake in the stations, will combine with Apollo to create a new company that will operate the stations and be headquartered in Atlanta.

The stations that are part of the acquisition are in most cases local news leaders in their areas, covering nine states and a combined 31 million viewers. The stations, which make up the entirety of Cox Media Group’s television portfolio, include:

• WSB-TV, ABC (Atlanta)
• WFTV-TV, ABC (Orlando, Fla.)
• WRDQ-TV, Independent (Orlando)
• WSOC-TV, ABC (Charlotte, N.C.)
• WAXN-TV, Independent (Charlotte)
• WPXI-TV, NBC (Pittsburgh)
• WHIO-TV, CBS (Dayton, Ohio)
• KIRO-TV, CBS (Seattle)
• WHBQ-TV, Fox (Memphis, Tenn.)
• WHBQ-TV, Fox (Memphis)
• WFOX-TV, Fox (Jacksonville, Fla.)
• KOKI-TV, Fox (Tulsa, Okla.)
• KMYT-TV, My Network (Tulsa)

Cox Media Group also provides programming sales and other operation services for WJAX-TV, CBS, in Jacksonville.

The deal with Cox will also see Apollo take over Cox’s other media platforms in Ohio, which include the newspapers Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-Sun and Journal-News, and radio stations WZLR (95.3 FM and 101.1 FM), WHKO (99.1 FM) and WHIO (95.7 FM and 1290 AM).

Cox has reportedly been looking for a strategic partner for its stations since this past July. With Apollo, Cox says that it will maintain its management and operating structure at the stations.

“We look forward, in collaboration with Cox Enterprises, to supporting the high standards to which each station operates and contributing to the platform’s future growth and prosperity,” said David Sambur, senior partner at Apollo, in the press release.

This transaction will be subject to customary regulatory review and closing conditions.