Late Wednesday night, word leaked that Comcast was planning to make a friendly bid for fellow cable company Time Warner, and on Thursday morning that deal was confirmed with an announcement from the companies involved. In case you are trying to get up to speed on what the impact of the deal might be and whether it is likely to succeed, here’s a rundown of the major points:

What’s happening?

Comcast describes the deal in this way: “The agreement is a friendly, stock-for-stock transaction in which Comcast will acquire 100 percent of Time Warner Cable’s 284.9 million shares outstanding for shares of CMCSA amounting to approximately $45.2 billion in equity value. Each Time Warner Cable share will be exchanged for 2.875 shares of CMCSA, equal to Time Warner Cable shareholders owning approximately 23 percent of Comcast’s common stock.”

Quartz has summed up the rationale behind the proposed merger with one…