Could Tim Cook be soon running CNN?

The Financial Times reports that a top Apple executive raised the prospect of Apple buying Time Warner at a meeting with the owner of HBO, CNN and Warner Brothers, according to three people who were briefed on it.

Eddy Cue, who oversees critical Apple businesses such as the iTunes store, Apple Music and iCloud, broached the idea of a bid at a meeting at the end of last year with Olaf Olafsson, Time Warner’s head of corporate strategy, the people said.

The meeting at the media group’s Manhattan headquarters had been arranged to discuss other commercial relationships between the two companies, such as the potential inclusion of Time Warner’s cable channels in a future Apple video streaming service.

The fact that Apple considered bidding for one of the world’s most prominent media companies — Time Warner has a market capitalisation of almost $60bn — underlines the tech group’s growing desire to offer its own content.

Apple and Time Warner declined to comment.

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