Potential Time Warner buyers heat up talks

Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Charter Communications, the potential buyer for Time Warner, is talking to banks to start raising money. Meanwhile, Time Warner has reached out to Comcast to combine.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Time Warner and Comcast aren't "actively" discussing combining the companies, though the companies have toyed with the idea in the past.

The company would rather merge with Comcast, which is the number one cable operator, with 22 million TV subscribers compared with Time Warner's 11 million, which is the second largest.

The two don't actively compete and have synergies, but the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice are likely to interfere with such a merger, fearing anti-trust violations and rising prices for consumers.

The FCC doesn't currently regulate how big cable companies can be, and industry advocates say that consolidation is good for the consumer because companies will be able to better regulate programming costs.

On the other hand, Charter Communications is drawing closer to a deal as well, talking to Bank of America, Barclays and Deutsche Bank for a multi-billion debt deal. Though it's not certain that the company will be able to materialize its bid for Time Warner, with a $35 billion market cap.

[Wall Street Journal] [CNBC]