AT&T mentioned takeover in meetings with Time Warner

A deal could be considered one of the biggest in current years in the area as telecom corporations make a land grasp for media firms as a way to get keep of treasured content material.

Time Warner shares jumped four.7 percentage in ordinary buying and selling and barely prolonged gains after hours. AT&T shares slipped 1.8 percent.

Neither side has but hired a financial adviser, Bloomberg stated. (bloom.bg/2enqBF9)

AT&T and Time Warner declined to comment.

Time Warner is appealing because of its top class cable channel HBO, the CNN information community, movie studio Warner Bros and other media property.

AT&T, which sells wireless smartphone and broadband offerings, may be seeking to emulate cable company Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O), which obtained NBCUniversal and DreamWorks Animation in a bid to turn out to be a large force that controls how television shows and films are made and the way they're delivered to viewers.

owning extra content material gives cable and telecom businesses greater leverage as customers demand smaller, hand-picked cable offerings or are slicing the twine altogether and looking on line.

AT&T has already made actions to turn itself right into a media powerhouse, shopping for satellite tv for pc tv provider DIRECTV last yr for $forty eight.five billion.

Time Warner leader government Jeff Bewkes has now not been inclined to sell in the past. The enterprise rejected an $eighty billion offer from Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (FOXA.O) in 2014.

while Bewkes, sixty four, turned into now not open to a deal two years ago, the tempo of consolidation in the media area may additionally urge him to reconsider, in particular as  competition, Viacom Inc (VIAB.O) and CBS Corp (CBS.N) were exploring a ability merger at the request of controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone.

speak of a deal comes as some other ability bidder, Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), is busy with its buy of net business enterprise Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O), which has been set back with the aid of news of a big hacking breach into Yahoo customers' e-mail accounts.

Time Warner has a market cost of about $65 billion. AT&T has a market price of approximately $238 billion.

Any merger of that length in a touchy marketplace would get a close appearance from regulators, analysts stated, however that would now not necessarily derail a deal.

"Whoever the subsequent president's pick out for the Federal Communications fee is will have a full-size say," stated Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner.

Entner said Comcast's purchase of NBCUniversal set a precedent and there may be "a robust argument to mention the FCC need to approve" a deal between AT&T and Time Warner.