WOW's Japanese Buyer Asks for Swift FCC Merger Review

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WOW!: WideOpenWest (WOW!) was sold last year and now it is being sold again. Softbank Corp., a $150 billion technology investment firm whose largest individual shareholder is Japanese citizen Masayoshi Son , is seeking FCC approval to acquire DigitalBridge Group , WOW!’s majority owner. The minority owner, with 37% equity interest , is Crestview Partners run by CEO and Co-Founder Barry Volpert. (Crestview Vice-Chairman is Jeff Marcus , an early cable investor who sold Marcus Cable to Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen in 1998 in a $2.8 billion deal.). The FCC approved DigitalBridge’s acquisition of WOW! on Dec. 19, 2025. That deal had an enterprise value of $1.5 billion , most of it debt. Two days before the deal closed on Dec. 31, Softbank announced it was buying DigitalBridge for $4 billion, making WOW!’s corporate parent a Japanese entity.(More after paywall)

From left: Crestview Partners CEO and Co-Founder Barry Volpert and Vice-Chairman Jeff Marcus

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