The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Friday paused its informal 180-day countdown to deciding the fate of two mergers - Comcast Corp's with Time Warner Cable Inc and AT&T Inc's with DirecTV.

The agency cited the pending court decision related to how it should handle disclosures of the companies' various contract agreements with media firms. The countdown, known as a "shot clock," is non-binding.

"At this time, we believe it is prudent to pause the informal 180-day transaction clocks because the commission would be advantaged by knowing the resolution of the pending Petition for Review before the transaction clocks reach the 180-day mark, which both are slated to do by the end of March," the FCC said in the announcement.