[nitrogen]

I don't understand the arguments against the merger very well. From what I've read, there is currently very little overlap between the regions of Time Warner Cable and those of Comcast [1]. If this is correct, how could the merger allow either firm to raise the price?

Raising the consumer price is only one of many things ComcastWarner could do. Having an even larger marketshare would allow them, for example, to extort more content distributors for more paid peering and hosting, for example.

But the combined customer base is supposed to be less than 30% of households that subscribe to cable or satellite TV [2].

30% is a very big number! No company would voluntarily give up 30% of its income over a distribution dispute, so ComcastWarner would be able to extract far more concessions from content producers.

It looks like the problem (which is addressed at the end of the post) is higher barriers to entry from local governments.

A larger ComcastWarner would have even more lobbying power to ensure those barriers to entry remain high.