text: Comcast today confirmed it has abandoned its bid to buy Time Warner Cable for $45.2billion and  create a mega-size TV and internet provider. 'Today, we move on. Of course, we would have liked to bring our great products to new cities, but we structured this deal so that if the government didn’t agree, we could walk away,' Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement. On Wednesday night, it emerged that Federal Communications regulators decided that merger wasn't in the public interest and threw up a regulatory roadblock that would have bogged the deal down for months and may have killed it entirely. This followed fierce opposition from net neutrality activists and content providers like Disney and 21st Century Fox. Scroll down for video . Comcast CEO Brian Roberts declared, 'today we move on' in announcing that the company was abandoning its bid to buy Time Warner Cable . Mega-merger: The $45.2billion deal would have merged Comcast's 30million customers with Time Warner Cable's 11million. The new company would have spun off or sold 3.9million customers . Comcast, already the biggest cable and internet provider in the country, has 30million subscribers. Time Warner is the no. 2 cable company in the US and the fourth-largest broadband TV and internet provider. 'Comcast NBCUniversal is a unique company with strong momentum. Throughout this entire process, our employees have kept their eye on the ball and we have had fantastic operating results. I want to thank them and the employees of Time Warner Cable for their tireless efforts,' Roberts said. The proposed merger would have controlled 57percent of the broadband internet market and 30 percent of the paid TV market with more than 27million customers across the nation. On Wednesday night, the Wall Street Journal revealed that FCC regulators questioned whether the creation of mega-size TV and internet provider was in the public interest. Staffers reportedly planned to recommend that an administrative law judge review the deal - a regulatory obstacle that is likely to cost both companies several months of hearings and many millions of dollars. The hearings were likely to draw the companies past the merger deadline, at the very least. Columbia University professor and net neutrality activist Tim Wu tweeted: 'Comcast merger is dead.' CNN's Brian Stelter reports that some inside the companies were talking about the deal in the past tense almost immediately after the FCC decision. 'This is one of those deals where the opponents of the merger have been one of the most vocal I can remember,' said S&P Capital IQ Tuna Amobi. One concern, for example, is that the company could undermine the streaming video industry by requiring onerous payments from new online-only video providers for connecting to its network. Dish, the satellite TV company behind the new Web video service Sling TV, and Netflix are opposed to the deal. Another charge is that Comcast hasn't stuck to conditions imposed on it when it bought NBCUniversal. The company says it has, except for one circumstance when the FCC found it wasn't promoting a stand-alone Internet service. Comcast says it fixed that. Pushback against the merger  picked up in the last couple weeks.
target: Merger between two largest cable companies have given the new firm control of 57percent of broadband internet market and 30percent of paid TV .
  'Today we move on,' says Comcast CEO Brian Roberts .
  Comcast has 30million subscribers and Time Warner Cable boasts 11million; new company would have spun off or sold 3.9million .
  FCC staffers recommended the merger be sent to a judge for review - a significant regulatory hurdle .
  Regulators questioned whether merger was in the public interest .