NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) - Get Report are lower by 1.16% to $56.90 in mid-afternoon trading on Wednesday, after the media company said it was pushing back the expected closing date of its $45 billion Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) merger to the middle of the year, from its earlier estimate that it would close in early 2015.

Comcast executive VP David Cohen said in a blog post that recent regulatory delays led to the decision to update the merger's expected closing time frame.

"Given the FCC's recent decision to pause the shot clock, we have recently reassessed the time frame when we expect the government's regulatory review to be completed and now expect that the review should be concluded in the middle of the year," Cohen said.

The deal between the two largest cable companies in the U.S. is still under review by regulators who have intensely scrutinized the proposal, requesting massive amounts of information from both parties and their competitors, the Wall Street Journal reports.

One factor causing the delay is a fight between big TV channel owners and the FCC regarding the confidentiality of programmers' contracts with Comcast and other pay-TV providers, the Journal added.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates COMCAST CORP as a Buy with a ratings score of A+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate COMCAST CORP (CMCSA) a BUY. This is based on the convergence of positive investment measures, which should help this stock outperform the majority of stocks that we rate. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, revenue growth, notable return on equity, reasonable valuation levels and good cash flow from operations. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows low profit margins."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• The stock has not only risen over the past year, it has done so at a faster pace than the S&P 500, reflecting the earnings growth and other positive factors similar to those we have cited here. Turning our attention to the future direction of the stock, it goes without saying that even the best stocks can fall in an overall down market. However, in any other environment, this stock still has good upside potential despite the fact that it has already risen in the past year.
• Despite its growing revenue, the company underperformed as compared with the industry average of 7.7%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 4.8%. This growth in revenue appears to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, improving the earnings per share.
• The return on equity has improved slightly when compared to the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Media industry and the overall market, COMCAST CORP's return on equity exceeds that of both the industry average and the S&P 500.
• Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 87.14% to $4,643.00 million when compared to the same quarter last year. The firm also exceeded the industry average cash flow growth rate of 48.22%.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: CMCSA Ratings Report