According to the Mail on Sunday, Time Warner and investor groups Goldman Sachs and Apax Partners, are considering taking a minority stake rather than staging a full bid because it would give the company the chance to reap rewards with less risk.
In addition, ITV currently has a £580m pension fund deficit and an investment from a consortium including Time Warner would be likely to reassure ITV's pension trustees.
If the bid is successful Time Warner is likely to put Greg Dyke, an adviser at Apax and former director-general of the BBC, in charge of ITV.
Earlier this year, David Elstein, the former head of Five, was rumoured to be putting together a bid for ITV with Sparrowhawk.
However, Elstein brought an end to the speculation, saying that a deal would be hard to achieve given that an estimated offer price of 160p would leave the finance house little room for manoeuvre.
As well as HBO and CNN, Time Warner owns Warner Bros film studios, New Line Cinema, AOL, IPC Media and Time Inc, which publishes more than 140 magazines.
None of the companies would comment on the proposed deal.
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