Time Warner shares soar on AT&T's interest

Shares of Time Warner soared more than 8% Friday after reports surfaced that it's in advanced talks to be acquired by telecom giant AT&T.

AT&T's interest in buying Time Warner, which owns HBO, Warner Bros., CNN and TNT, first surfaced Thursday in a Bloomberg report. But their talks have advanced and an agreement could come as early as this weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Time Warner couldn't be reached for comment Friday. AT&T, which owns DirecTV and provides wireless and Internet services, also couldn't be reached for comment.

Shares of Time Warner rose 8% on Friday to $89.67. AT&T fell 3% to $37.52.

Verizon is winner in Yahoo sale with $4.8B bid

Consumers are rapidly flocking to digital media and increasingly ditching their traditional cable and satellite TV offerings. In response, telecommunications service providers are eager to diversify their revenue sources beyond just providing their "pipes" for distributing media content.

In July, Verizon, which offers cable TV, wireless and Internet services, agreed to pay $4.8 billion to buy Yahoo's core businesses, including Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance. Last year, Verizon also paid $4.4 billion to buy AOL.

AT&T has been moving more slowly to broaden its media content portfolio. Last year, it paid about $49 billion to buy satellite TV service provider DirecTV, a deal that expanded its pay-TV market reach nationwide. With more customers subscribing to its Internet, wireless and TV offerings, AT&T now plans to focus on buying more media and entertainment companies, Bloomberg reported.

21st Century Fox withdraws bid for Time Warner

Time Warner's assets, particularly HBO, sports programming and Warner Bros., are highly prized by other media companies.  In July, 2014, 21st Century Fox, controlled by billionaire mogul Rupert Murdoch, offered to pay about $80 billion for Time Warner, or $84 a share in cash and stock. If completed, it would have been at the time the largest media merger since the disastrous AOL purchase of Time Warner for $162 billion in 2000.

A month later, Murdoch withdrew the offer after Time Warner Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes said his company was worth more and rejected it.

Time Warner once operated a cable TV service unit, but spun it off in 2009 to focus on media content businesses. Time Warner Cable, the spun-off business, was acquired by Charter Communications last year for $56 billion.