The upcoming season for cable TV could see yet another merger.
Charter Communications — the nationwide cable giant whose properties include Spectrum, formerly Time Warner Cable — is weighing a fresh plan to acquire Atlanta-based Cox Communications, three sources told The Post.
Charter Chief Executive Tom Rutledge is eyeing family-owned Cox despite the fact that the latter has repeatedly rejected overtures from larger rivals, industry insiders say.
“Tom wants to buy Cox,” said one highly placed cable source. Another confirmed the news, but stressed there have been no formal approaches.
“If they’re going to sell it to anyone, they’re going to sell it to an old cable guy,” one industry source said.
Rutledge is a former chief operating officer at Cablevision, which was acquired for $17.7 billion from the Dolan family last year by French-based Altice NV, which has also acquired Suddenlink.
Cox, the third-largest cable company in the US with 6.2 million customers, has long said it isn’t for sale.
“Cox has been very clear and consistent that we are not for sale and, in fact, we’re aggressively investing in our network, products and strategic partnerships and investments of our own,” Cox spokesman Todd Smith told The Post on Wednesday. Charter declined to comment.
Still, insiders say Charter may have reason to believe a change of heart is afoot.
In April, Cox Enterprises, the corporate parent of Cox Communications, named Alex Taylor, the great-grandson of the founder James Cox, as the company’s next CEO. He will take over on Jan. 1.
Cox was once public but returned to private ownership in 2004.
Charter, who major shareholder and media mogul John Malone has described as his “horizontal acquisition machine,” scooped up Time Warner Cable and BrightHouse, for a total of $67.1 billion. The deals were finalized in May 2016.
Malone’s Liberty Interactive also bought Alaska-based cable system GCI for $1.1 billion in April. Liberty will in all likelihood flip GCI, which has just 100,000 customers, to Charter at some point, cable watchers predict.
What’s more, Charter won’t be the only suitor should Cox decide it wants a dance partner. Other possible acquirers include Altice, Comcast and Verizon, sources say.