LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shares of satellite TV companies Dish and DirecTV surged in midday trading Wednesday after a report said that Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen had contacted DirecTV CEO Mike White about merging.

Bloomberg News reported Ergen initiated the discussion in response to Comcast Corp.’s pending $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc., which was announced last month. The news service cited several unnamed sources.

Recommended Stories

Democrats near the prize: Election-law overhauls in battleground states

MAGA won the party. It just lost the math

A bipartisan mental health and addiction treatment success story